Pte 52122 Sydney Steains Thomas

• Age: 28
• From: Manchester
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 30th March 1918
• Commemorated at: Pozieres Memorial
  Panel Ref: P21-23

Sydney Steains Thomas was born in September 1889 in Salford and resided in Manchester and was the youngest son of John Thomas and his wife Alice Maria (née Steains or Staines, spellings vary, although she seems to have signed her name Steains on her marriage certificate). His father, born in Broughton, near Salford, and his mother in Seaforth, Cheshire, married in Salford in 1866 and had at least eleven children.  Sydney had older siblings John, Mary, James, George, Annie, Richard, Margaret, Ethel, and Harold, and a younger sister Emily.

In 1891 the family is living at  2 Mulgrave Street, Broughton, near Salford, with six children.  His father is a foreman, maker up to shipper’s (a garment assembler, person who prepared or 'made up' material to customers’ requirements). Sydney is 1.

His mother died in the summer of 1900, aged 54, when Sydney was 10 years old. 

The family are still at 2 Mulgrave Street in 1901, with five children at home.  His widowed father is in the same job, Sydney is 12.  

His father appears to have died in 1909 aged 65.

The 1911 Census shows him living with his sister Mary Alice Bancroft and her family at 9 Lister St Pendleton Salford.His sister is aged 42, born 1869 as is her husband Fred who is a bookmaker at the races. They have four children Edith Emma aged 16, born 1895 occupation calico weaver, John William aged 14, born 1897 and a shipping house clerk, George Frederick aged 10, born 1901 and Fred aged 5, born 1906 are at school. Sydney is aged 22 and working as a maker up in a shipping house (cotton).  

He enlisted in Manchester and was formerly Private 3321 in The Manchester Regiment. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for 39 months, enlisting in 1914. Following a transfer he was serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 52122 when he was killed in action on the 30^th March 1918 during the German Spring Offensive.

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March.

Sydney has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France. 

He was initially declared Missing between 22nd-30th March 1918. His family made enquiries with the Red Cross on 2nd August 1918 and again on 20th November 1918. 

Soldiers’ Effects, inexplicably giving date of death as 11th October 1915, shows that his sister Mary Alice Bancroft, 89 Kenyon Lane, Moston, Manchester, as guardian, received his Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £18-10s. The pension card shows his name as Sidney Staines Thomas. 

This was the second grievous loss Mary Alice suffered. Her son John William Bancroft served with the 1st/7th Bn Manchester Regiment, was wounded in action at Gallipoli, and died of his wounds on 23rd September 1915.  He was 19 years old.  John now rests in Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery, Helles, Turkey. 

Sadly, Sydney had not been found on any memorial. 

CWGC has his name as Sidney Thomas.

We currently have no further information on Sydney Steains Thomas, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.