Sidney Leonard Dean

Private Sidney Dean was born in Cheltenham in 1897 to William, a Fish Hawker, and his wife Alice. He was one of 14 children, seven of whom were boys and all of whom served during the war. By the age of 14 years, after leaving St. John’s School, Sidney was an Errand Boy but later worked at The Hippodrome Theatre and Music Hall.

The family lived at 32 Fairview Road.

Aged 19 years, Sidney got himself into some bother with the police, having been charged with the theft of two bicycles. The newspaper report states “He seems to have no prejudices of politic or sex, his thefts being from both the Liberal and Conservative Clubs and the bicycles gentleman’s and lady’s.”

A few months later Sidney enlisted at Bristol, probably in the Gloucestershire Regiment and was transferred to the Dorsetshire Regiment. He was killed just after the Battle of Albert in the last weeks of the war in what became known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which ultimately led to the end of the war.

He is buried at Assevillers New British Cemetery, the Somme. The words on his headstone, chosen by his mother, read “Thy Will Be Done”. In Cheltenham he is commemorated on the Cheltenham war memorial and in Holy Trinity Church.