Sidney Chandler was born in October 1895 in Boxmoor near Hemel Hempstead the tenth child of Alfred Chandler and Susan Fountain. Alfred and Susan had thirteen children and there was over twenty-three years between the oldest and youngest. The children were: Jesse, Frederick, Arthur, Sarah Anne, Alfred, George, Marion, Joseph, Thomas, William Frank, Harry, Sidney and Archibald Bernard.

Three of the children died young, Joseph in 1893 aged three, Harry in 1898 aged four and one other at an unknown date. Thomas also fought and died in the Great War. He was killed only two months after Sidney in October 1916 and his biography also appears on this site.

Sidney’s father Albert was a ‘Platelayer’ working for the London and North Western Railway and had brought his family to Boxmoor near Hemel Hempstead in the early 1890’s.

By the time of Sidney’s birth, the family were living at 63 London Road, Boxmoor in the ‘Railway Cottages’. In 1911, fifteen-year-old Sidney had started work as a ‘Clerk’ in Apsley Paper Mills with John Dickinson & Co. Limited. His older brothers Arthur and Thomas worked for the London North Western Railway as ‘Station-Master’ at St. Albans and ‘Porter’ at Bletchley respectively.

On the outbreak of war, Sidney travelled to Hertford where he attested on the 7th September 1914 and joined the 1/1st Battalion Hertfordshire Regiment. On enlistment, Sidney was described as 5ft 3½ins tall, with a ‘Fresh’ complexion, blue eyes and fair hair. He was immediately sent to Bury St Edmunds to train and remained there until the start of 1915 when he went to France.

The 1st Battalion Hertfordshires served in the 4th (Guards) Brigade of the veteran 2nd Division and because of this attachment, they were sometimes referred to as the "Hertfordshire Guards" and adopted many of the Guards peculiarities as a result, including naming their Companies by number rather than letter.

Whilst serving in the 4th Brigade, the battalion fought alongside the following other Guards battalions: the 2nd Battalion, the Grenadier Guards; the 2nd Battalion, the Coldstream Guards; the 3rd Battalion, the Coldstream Guards; and the 1st Battalion, the Irish Guards.

Sidney disembarked in France on the 23rd January 1915 and joined the Battalion at Beuvry east of Béthune on the 31st January as part of a draft of "2 Officers and 190 O.Rs". He saw his first significant action in May at the Battle of Festubert where the Battalion suffered 113 casualties over two days of fighting. 

In the following September, Sidney fought in the Battle of Loos where again the Battalion incurred a high number of casualties including twenty-six from gas poisoning. Sidney survived Loos and was promoted Lance Corporal in November 1915.

Sidney came home to Boxmoor for eight days in January 1916 and after his return to France he was promoted Corporal in April 1916. He had a second spell of home leave in June and was once more promoted on his return to the Front, this time to Lance Serjeant on the 14th July 1916.

On the 1st August the 1st Hertfordshires relieved the 13th Battalion Royal Sussex in the Festubert sub-section of trenches. For the next three days there was little of note other than some light enemy shelling and sniping and casualties were mercifully few.

However, Sidney was tragically killed. He was in a detached post where he had been engaged in cutting the grass in front of his position so that the enemy could not crawl up unseen. He was hit in the neck by a sniper’s bullet and killed instantly.

He died on Friday, 4th August 1916.

His death was reported in the Hemel Gazette three weeks later along with a letter from his C.O. Capt. S. Lowry, explaining the circumstances of his death and offering sympathy to the family. Capt. Lowry also describes Sidney’s character and promise which helps explain his rapid promotions in the field.

Sidney is Remembered with Honour in Brown's Road Military Cemetery, Festubert, Pas-de-Calais, France where he is interred in Grave II.A.15

He was 21 years old when he died

Sidney was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.