Royal Horse Artillery
Sidney Nicholls was a career soldier, recalled to the colours at the start of the Great War.
He was born in the parish of St Mark’s, Gloucester in late 1885 or very early 1886 and was the son of Henry Nicholls (a general labourer) and his wife Louisa (née Lane). According to the 1911 Census the couple had eight children, of whom five were living.
It should be noted that one of the eight (and of the five surviving) may well have been Gertrude May Ashen, aged six, an adopted daughter. Henry and Louisa had married in 1877, when he was 46 and she 28. Henry died in 1898, aged 68.
Sidney joined the Army on 19 March 1906 at Gloucester, aged 20 years and three months.
He signed on for three years with the colours and nine in the Reserve.
At the time he described his occupation as a fitter and stated that he had previously been one of the Gloucester Volunteer Engineers.
He requested a posting to any of the arms of the Royal Artillery.
His initial service was with the Royal Field Artillery and he must have taken to service life because on 5 February 1907 he amended his contract to serving six years with the colours. On 1 January 1908 he transferred to ‘G’ Battery, Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) and served with them until his transfer to the Army Reserve on 19 March 1912.
He served in India for the period 9 March 1907 to 7 January 1912.
As a Reservist, he was immediately recalled to the Army at the outbreak of the Great War and was posted as a Gunner to the RHA on 6 August 1914.
Ten days later he was joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and Belgium and served on the Western Front until 6 January 1916 (a total of one year and 144 days).
He then returned to the UK, where he spent the rest of his time in the Army.
On 6 July 1917 he was transferred, as a Private, to the Labour Corps and acquired a new number of 323391. The transfer was probably prompted by concerns about his continued fitness for front line service and a down grading in his medical category.
What role he played in the Labour Corps is not known: he served in the Eastern Command and was discharged at Nottingham.
His discharge took place on 27 December 1917, he being considered no longer physically fit for war service, due to jaundice, which had originated in December 1915 in France. The condition was seen as being aggravated by war service.
In all he had served in the Army for 11 years and 284 days.
Some of his Army Pension Record has survived and according to his discharge papers Sidney’s military character was seen as exemplary: ‘a man with an excellent Army record, smart, steadily reliable’.
He was awarded a 80% disability pension, with an allowance for one child.
On 29 October 1917 Sidney had married Ellen Louise Alexandra Atkin at Woolwich Register Office and their son, also named Sidney, had been born at Woolwich on 5 October 1917.
Gunner Sidney Nicholls returned to live in Gloucester, at 1 Spring Villas, Longlevens and died there on 7 January 1919, aged 33.
According to some family tree information on the Ancestry website the cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver and acute haematemesis.
He was buried in Gloucester Old Cemetery, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave, within the Great War plot.
Researched by Graham Adams 28 August 2019