Current Information:

Age-27

111, Peabody Square, Waterloo

Born-Bloomsbury

Woburn Abbey Cemetery, Cuinchy, France

On 14th May, 1915, the 1st South Wales Borderers battalion of 3 Brigade, 1st Division, left Beuvry and relieved a French unit in trenches south of Cuinchy where they remained until relieved on 20th May. It rained all day on 17th May when Sidney Burgess was killed but the battalion diary provides no further information about his death. The attrition rate among British soldiers on the Western Front was on average 300 each day and 60% of these were as a result of shellfire. When not involved in an actual battle it was either shell fire or a sniper’s bullet that caused most deaths and injuries.