Sidney Bavney Brown

A Private with the 2nd Battalion, Sidney died on 22nd of October 1916 at the age of 19. 

Sidney was born at Frostenden in 1898, a son of Harry and Anna Brown. In 1901 his family lived at 89 Cambridge Road, Lowestoft, and this was still their home in 1911 when Sidney worked as a junior clerk at Lowestoft Corporation Electrical Works. Later his parents lived at 13 Worthing Road and then 46 Sussex Road.

Sidney enlisted in the Army at Lowestoft. He joined the Middlesex Regiment, service number 26977. In 1916 he was transferred to the Dorsetshire Regiment, service number 24315, and was posted to the 2nd Battalion in Mesopotamia. 

The 2nd Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment had arrived at Mesopotamia in November 1914. The battalion suffered heavy casualties and was besieged at Kut-el-Amara and amalgamated with the 2nd Norfolk Regiment as a composite unit called the ‘Norsets’. However, after the fall of Kut-el-Amara a new 2nd Battalion was formed with the men of the original 2nd Battalion who had not been captured and reinforcements sent from England.

It is most likely that Sidney was one of the reinforcements sent from England. Sidney died at a hospital in Amara (note this I not Kut-el-Amara – they are two different towns). Some sources suggest that he died of wounds.