Sidney Weeks

Story:
Sidney Weeks was born in 1887 in Dean, Sixpenny Handley, Dorset, and baptised at Gussage St Andrew, Dorset, on 1st January, 1888. He was the son of Edward Jesse Weeks, a Game Keeper, and Sarah Ann Weeks (nee Avery). His siblings included James, born in 1897, who also died in the war whereas Edward Jesse Weeks served and survived. At the time of the 1911 Census Sidney was single, working as a Farm Labourer and living at Farnham, Blandford, Dorset. He married Sybil Gwendoline May Frampton in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on 1st March, 1915 but their second child, Arthur Leslie Weeks, was born in 1914 and baptised at Gussage St. Andrew on 14th June, 1914. Sidney enlisted in Blandford as a Private with the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Edinburgh's (Wiltshire) Regiment (Service No. 29665). He served initially in the Balkans from 13 Jul 1915 and later in France & Flanders and was awarded the Victory and British War Medals as well as the 1915 Star. He was presumed killed in action on 24th April 1917 and his name appears on the Arras Memorial, Arras, Pas-de-Calais, France (Bay 7). He is remembered on the Farnham War Memorial. His wife received a widow's pension of £1. 2s. 11d. (£1. 15p.) per week for herself and two children though eventually she re-married Roy Robert Pearce in Sherborne, Dorset, during 1918.