Walter Sydney Pratt, known as Sydney, was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in December 1899, the fourth child and second son of Sydney Pratt and Eleanor Nockles. Sydney and Eleanor had six children together who were, Edith Eliza, William Andrew, Linda Florence, Walter Sydney, Harold and Alice Maud. The family lived at 71, Cotterells Road (now Cotterells) in Hemel Hempstead, where all the children were born and where Sydney Snr. carried on his trade as a “Boot and Shoe Repairer”. Indeed the Pratt family had lived on the same road for many years, where young Sidney’s grandfather Andrew, also a “Boot Maker”, lived next door.

Sydney’s mother Eleanor was a native of Hackney in London and she too was employed in the boot and shoe trade as a “Machinist”. The women's and children's boot and shoe trade had developed throughout Hackney, Bethnal Green, and Spitalfields, in the 1880s, both in large manufactories and small workshops, and women and girls were employed chiefly in making the tops or uppers of boots and shoes. It is not known how Sydney Snr. and Eleanor met and it may have been that he went to work in the area in the early 1890s. However the meeting happened, they became sweethearts and married in Shoreditch, London in 1893 and straightaway moved to Hemel Hempstead and Cotterells Road.

By 1911, the family had moved to Harpenden and lived at 17, Newcombe Street and sometime during the next few years they moved once again, this time to 18, Copsewood Road, Watford. It was from here that young Sydney left to volunteer as soon as he reached his eighteenth birthday in December 1917. Following his basic training he was sent overseas on the 11th June 1918 and posted to the East Surrey Regiment. Just a month later he was transferred to the 11th (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) under the orders of the 18th (Eastern) Division in the 54th Brigade.

Sydney joined his new comrades as part of a draft of eleven Officers and 120 Other Ranks on 30th July and was immediately in the trenches as preparations progressed for a major offensive in early August. This was the Battle of Amiens the opening phase of the Allied offensive which would ultimately lead to the end of the Great War. As the battalion moved into position, the trench system at the assembly lines was attacked briefly by the Germans and it was during this assault that Sydney was killed.

Sydney died on Wednesday, 7th August 1918 having arrived in France only eight weeks earlier and having been in the frontline for less than a week.

He is Remembered with Honour in the Beacon Cemetery, Sailly-Laurette, Somme, France, where he is interred in Grave III. G. 2. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his mother Eleanor, reads: “FROM ALL HIS LABOURS NOW HE RESTS IN GOD'S ETERNAL GLORY BLEST”.

He was only 18 years old when he died.

Sydney was eligible for the British War Medal or the Allied Victory Medal .