This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in June 2004, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.

SYDNEY BAINES

In our series of the men whose names appear on our War Memorial, we tell the story of a young husband and father who lost his life for his country.

Until 1987, where nos. 7-13 Shillington Road now stand, was a row of cottages. These cottages were popularly known as 'Ten Steps' and had been built in the mid 18th century. In the second of this row of 'two up and two down' cottages, lived the Baines family of ten. From this family the fourth oldest child, Sydney, was taken into the inferno called the Somme and killed in 1916.  Both of his parents were born in Pirton and would rarely have seen beyond this small part of the north Hertfordshire countryside. Albert was born in 1861 and sometime around 1885 he married Elizabeth, just four years younger. From this union came five boys and five girls of whom one, Ida, died in infancy.

Just over a century ago, Pirton was a village of around 1200 people and whilst this was not so different from today, the number of houses was probably less than half of today's number. Sydney, one of Pirton's War Memorial names, was born on 27th March 1892 and baptised at St. Mary's a month later. The Baines family was not alone in being crowded in this part of 'down-town' Pirton. Sydney's younger sister Lily (Bell) later recalled how their home 'seemed so full that armed with my bread, egg and mattress I would go each evening to my older sister's house near the pond to sleep'.

Like most men in the village, Albert was an agricultural worker whilst his wife Elizabeth added to the meagre family income by doing some seasonal straw plaiting. From the 1901 census we have a snapshot of the family. The eldest son Charlie (Jack Baines' father) was a sixteen year old ploughboy, 14 year old Mary had just left school and helped one of the better-off village mothers in domestic chores. Fred, 11 at that time, headed the Baines children who attended the village school just up the hill. His brother, nine-year-old Sydney was probably in the same large class at the school. Then there was Rose, probably the best scholar of this large family for she was allowed to leave school at 12, followed by Edward (Ted) and Lily. Harry and Hilda (Dawson) were born not long after that 1901 census was taken.

Leaving school around 1906, Sydney was one of many village children who, on leaving school at fourteen, probably became attached to one of the local farms and worked long days with little financial reward. Pirton was a relatively 'poor village' at that time; the Baines family being one of many who simply worked to live with little space for frills!

With the outbreak of the War that 'was to finish by Christmas 1914', some of Pirton's young men began to enlist. It was around this time that Sydney married a young Pirton lass of similar age, Ethel Lily (probably Bunyan). It was not long before Ethel gave birth to a daughter, Edna.  No family remained unaffected by the War for long, and Sydney soon enlisted at Bedford into the regular army. The next time he returned to the village he was Private 26026 Baines, of the 4th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment. It was not long before any new soldier saw active service, and Sydney was probably with his regiment when they were shipped across the Channel and landed at Le Havre on 25thJuly 1916. This was two months after Britain had turned their clocks on an hour for the first-ever British summer time in order 'to save hundreds of tons of coal' and less than a month after the carnage at The Somme began.

We know nothing of Sydney's short time at The Front, he is not one mentioned in the recently discovered 'Pirton war-time scrapbook of newspaper cuttings'. He was simply one of the thousands of ordinary men thrown into the horrors of that time. Four months after the Somme offensive began, over half a million allies were dead, a number well exceeded by German fatalities.

For Sydney, as with all those torn from their homeland, life must have been horrendous at The Front. On Monday 13th November 1916, less than four months after landing at Le Havre, Sydney was 'killed in action'. The circumstances of his death are not known and he remains one of the thousands of men who were simply war casualties, an unsung hero of a conflict run by 'incredibly stupid war-lords'.

A few years later, his name was one of the thirty etched into the Pirton war memorial placed in St Mary's churchyard remembering the young men who had given their lives 'For King and Country'. The Baines family was one of the many village families who carried their grief of a lost son, husband or father. This grief was made worse as his parents, Albert and Elizabeth, never knew where he was buried. Only later did younger members of this large family learn that his final resting place was in the Ancre British Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, on the Somme battlefield in France. (Ref. 1.C.26).

His young wife Ethel was left with their young daughter She later married to become Ethel Elms and lived at The Grange in Shillington. The rest of the family just had to get on with their lives. When he was 70, His father Albert took on the job of village roadman and became known as 'the little man with the big broom'.

He kept the village roads immaculate, always leaving outside chapel and church until Saturday morning so they were clean for Sunday. If an accident on road to Hitchin occurred he would cut a cross on the grass verge as mark of respect.

His parents, who probably rarely travelled far from their native Pirton, were buried at St Mary's. Elizabeth died on 7th June 1935, age 70 and Albert, aged 85, on 22nd April 1946.

Charlie, oldest brother of Sydney and father of Jack Baines, was tragically killed in 1941 when working on the railway by a train in the tunnel at Welwyn. Hilda, the youngest sister of Sydney, now aged 98, lives with her daughter, Jean Izzard, in Maulden. Until recently, Hilda lived no 17 Shillington Road, which earlier this year was demolished to make way for new properties.

*** For help with this article we thank Clare Baines, "Memories of LiIy Bell" in this magazine (October 1994 & December 1999), Hilda Dawson. Jean Izzard, Liz Gentle, Marina Simmons,, Lynda Smith www.roll-of-honour.com, Jonty Wild www.pirton.org.uk, and 'A Foot on Three Daisies' especially the chapter by Val Guess & Helen Hofton

Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk

We would like to ask for your help, if you have any information, photographs or artefacts:

Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk

Also if anyone would like copy of any Pirton WW1 war grave or memorial please contact Jonty Wild, digital copies for personal use will be provided free of charge to relatives, photographs can be provided for a small charge.

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