| Date of birth: | April 1890 |
| Place of birth: | Wandsworth, London |
| Service No.: | 8713 |
| Rank: | Private |
| Regiment: | Hampshire |
| Battalion: | 2nd |
| Died: | 28th April 1915 |
| Death location: | Gallipoli |
Life before the War
Morris was born in 1890 in Wandsworth, London to William and Alice, the 7th of their 10 children. William was born in 1856 in North Shields, Northumberland; Alice was born in 1859 in Sheffield, which is where William and Alice married in 1880. William was a Blacksmith by trade and travelled south for work. On the 1881 census William and Alice are living with William’s parents, Jim and Ann, in Attercliffe cum Darnall, Sheffield, along with their first child, Elizabeth, aged three months, who sadly died shortly afterwards.
The 1891 census records that the family is living in Battersea, with three children born in Sheffield:
Alice – born 1882
William – born 1884
Emma – born 1886
Three children were born in London:
Florence – born 1887
Ernest – born 1888
Morris – 1890
By the 1901 census the family has moved to 104 Cranbury Road, Bishopstoke, and William senior is a Forgeman on the South West Railways. New additions to the family are:
Jim – born 1893 in Southampton. War casualty – died 13th May 1915, just 2 weeks after his brother – at the Second Battle of Ypres. To read Jim’s story please select the link to his name.
Annie – born 1895 in Southampton
Clara – born in 1896 in Eastleigh
By 1911 the parents are living at 75 Broadlands Road, Portswood with just one son listed – Ernest; Jim is living at 24 Broadlands Road. In the columns for the number of children living and those who had died, nine are listed as living and two have died: these would be Elizabeth, and another not shown on any census.
William Sidaway senior died in December 1925, and his wife Alice in December 1938, both in Southampton.
Military History
In the 1911 census Morris is already with the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment and is at the Badajos Barracks, Aldershot. Originally known as the West Infantry Barracks, they were renamed ‘Badajos’ in the late 1880s after Wellington’s victory during the Peninsular War in 1812.
Helles Memorial
Morris then moved to the 2nd Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment. On 29th March 1915 they sailed from Avonmouth for Gallipoli, going via Egypt and forming part of the fateful landing at Cape Helles on 25th April 1915, where the Battalion engaged in the Battle of Gallipoli; it was here that Morris died on 28th April 1915.
He is memorialised on the Helles Memorial, a 30-metre high obelisk situated at the end of the Gallipoli Peninsula, which can be seen by ships as they pass through the Dardanelles. Morris Sidaway is also memorialised on the Southampton Cenotaph and the World War One tablet inside St Mary’s Church, South Stoneham, Southampton. He was entitled to the 1914/15 Star Campaign Medal, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
| Researcher: | Bridgett Vane |
| Published: | 2nd July 2015 |
| Updated: | Insert dates here |
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