Sidney Woolford. Picture provided by Sidney's Great Grand Daughter Justine Hard.
Sidney Woolford. Died 1916
Sidney Woolford was born in Finchampstead, Berkshire and by 1901 was employed as a servant by a family in Ascot. In 1905 he married Edith Tizard and at the time of his recruitment, was living on the Finchampstead Road (opposite the Tesco site). Within under a year of him joining up, Sidney died on the 29 June 1916, aged 34. His recruitment papers tell us he was a male nurse and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps.
- Mrs Edith ‘Babs’ Woolford (Tizzard)
Sidney was a nurse at Reading Military Hospital and died from a diseased lower jaw (from death certificate). However, his son always maintained he was murdered there by an inmate. See the comment below using information from Justine Hard, Sidney’s Great Grand Daughter.
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The list below is Sidney’s family tree.
Click on the ‘individuals’ part of the list and read about what has been discovered about Sidney, his siblings and his parentage.
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Sidney's birth certificate. Click on image to increase size
Sadly, we have been unable to locate Sidney’s 1911 census record and therefore do not know the names of any children be may have had. We wonder about the exact circumstances of his death because he is registered as dying in Reading. Did he catch a contagious sickness from a patient? Was he injured on the field of battle, maybe as a stretcher barer? It will be interesting to find out and hope to provide some more answers in the comments section.
From Justine Woolford, Great Grand Daughter of Sidney Woolford:
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your emails!
I have attached the one and only photo we have of Sidney and also one of his wife Edith.
They did only have the 2 children – Walter my grandfather, and Edith, known as Babs.
Sidney was born in 1884. he had a brother also called Sydney Walter Woolford who was born in 1882 but died before our Sidney was born (hence he was also called Sidney but different spelling). he had no more siblings.
I am also trying to find out exactly what happened on his death. I have his death certifiacte which says he died from Acute Osteo Myelitis of Lower jaw and died in Reading military Hospital on 29 June 1916. I remember being told he caught an illness from a soldier he was nursing and died. However!!!!!!! I spoke to my dad only last week and both him and my mum remember Walter telling them that his father was murdered by an inmate at the hospital. he was attacked and then died. So I am now trying to find out about this. i spoke to reading library yesterday and asked them to do a search in the local newspapers to see if there are any stories or obituaries. i don’t live near Reading so they will do a 15 minute search for free for me, so fingers crossed!!!
I did take a trip to Reading and saw the Cemetery and the wall of Remembrance with Sidney’s name on which was great to see.
I also found out he had a full military funeral and is buried with 4 other soldiers:
Samuel Brown
James Prince
William Lawrence
George Criddle
I don’t know if there was an actual gravestone for the 4 of them as we did look but couldn’t see anything!! So I will let you know what the Library find out and if you find out any more please keep in touch! If you would like birth, marriage and death certs let me know also!
From Mike in response:
Hi Justine, right a bit more time to answer your email. I was at a wedding yesterday and sneaked off to sent out a quick reply. I’ve updated the page, I hope it is acceptable: http://www.wokinghamremembers.com/?page_id=445
I had a look at the cause of death and it seems to be related to poor dental health and can be generally sorted out by antibiotics. But no anti biotics until the 20’s ! Here’s a link about conditions early 20th c: http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/22-113-edwardians-and-ww1-Health-facts.html It just gives a simple flavour of conditions then. There is also a quick section about poor mental health in WW1.
So would Sidney die because of infected teeth? Plausible, he would certainly have been knocked down by it and terrible agony, which would draw attention to it. I’m not sure this could be picked up from another soldier though do you ? I wonder if there is a connection between ‘infected by an inmate’ and ‘murdered by an inmate’ ? If he was murdered in the hospital by a deranged soldier, would you in the military want this to get out? Keeping the national morale up would have extended to not drawing attention to the darker side of hospital life. Especially one which had only been opened for a number of months. If they were keeping it out of the news, it’s unlikely you’ll find anything in the papers. I’ve just got a feeling that your family story will be correct (they usually are), but not sure if we’ll get anywhere if it was a hush up. I’ve emailed a cousin who built up a bit of knowledge on murders (a few of our ancestors were bumped off it seems) and I’ll see if he can give a bit of guidance. Also, I know of a local military historian in Reading who might be able to have a browse through or at least provide some more direction. Here is a link on a murder committed by a ww1 soldier http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/articles/2008/11/11/ww1_john_gittins_feature.shtml
You might be able to find something of the other names you mentioned in this link (it’s a great web site on Reading’s Trooper Potts VC) http://www.pottsvctrust.org/YGF.htm
Reply by Justine:
Hello again,
sorry was just re-reading your mail as i was out at a concert yesterday too!
I think you are right that the murder would be hushed up, i hadn’t thought of that. and it does seem strange that he would die of an infection or maybe the wound was caused by the attacker which then turned infectious and he died. We haven’t kept in contact with Walters sisters family but i am trying to trace one 2nd cousin i know off to see if i can write to her. I would think that Babs would have had all the family papers as I know my grandfather didn’t have any, hence only having the one photo.
Very frustrating! The hardest part is knowing where and to whom to contact!!!
From Mike:
Yes, spot on with where you think the treasure lies – always look to the daughter and maybe the daughter’s daughter. I traced one side of the family where a Grandfather lost four or maybe five bothers to the war. Nothing was known about them until we made contact with the family of their only sister. My info on my own tree always came from the old dames of the family. It took me ages to track them down. And yes very frustrating and not a few phone calls with bewildered receivers wondering what I was selling!
The first trick is to build the names as much as you can. Therefore, who did Babs marry, what were the children’s names. That get you to the grandparents – then it goes blank! You get about three or four possibilities along your Dad’s generation. I then went to 192.com and picked up they have the records of all council tax payers form about 2000 I think it is. You get the address, often a telephone number and even the neighbours names. I’ve even phoned the neighbour and asked them to knock on the next door and given them a phone number to call me back. It’s funny, but they seem happy to do it – because they never seemed to have spoken to each other and seemed a good excuse to do so. Funnily enough, it’s the middle initial that did it for me. What I found amazing was that all the names you write down on a piece of paper suddenly spring to life !
From Mike:
When I started of my own family search, I was told we came from pirates. I doubted this because I have a large yellow streak running right down my back. The family were quite serious and they backed it up by saying the family line were all merchant seaman. The only time I felt any truth in this was I did have a line of tax collectors, so that was near enough. In the end I found a photo of a grave of a Richard Churcher died 1680 and it had a skull and crossbones on it. This is where the whispers came from. Except the sign of any death then had the skull and crossbones on it – not just the jolly roger…. and in any case this Richard Churcher was only 5 years old when he died, a little young to be taken seriously although my son I admit could really bite into my knee caps at that age.
Point is (yes there is one), when I read that Sidney died of an illness during his time as a nurse, like you I immediately thought he had caught it from a soldier (I discovered many of our own 217 Fallen died from infectious disease). If true in a sense that soldier did kill your Great Grandfather. Then it only takes a twist for the story to change into that ‘soldier murdered your Great Grandfather’. Maybe I’m hoping this is true, I cannot stand the idea of a person being responsible for the death of a man who was doing his best to care and help others. Your Great Grandfather was a very brave man, he trained as a servant, not a medic and he must have been traumatised by what he had seen whilst helping the soldiers. For him to come to such an end, well I just hope it isn’t true.
I have been doing some work on Wokingham’s Special Constables during WWI and can add a small snippet of information to Sidney Woolford’s biography.
His name was included in the Ambulance Section of the “List of Special Constables Registered to be sworn in if required on an emergency arising, necessitating their employment” for the Wokingham Division of the Police Special Reserve. The list of returns was dated 12th July 1915.
He is listed as follows:
Name: Woolford, Sidney W
Address: 19 Finchampstead Rd
Please note however, that the register shows no specific record of him being sworn in.
Source: Berkshire Record Office
Catalogue Ref: PS/FT/26/2
Further information relating to Wokingham’s special constables during WWI can be found on my blog:
http://berkshireresearch.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/berkshires-home-front-1915-operation-gramophone/