Sydney Charles Cornforth
Sydney Charles Cornforth was born 28 April 1895 in County Durham, England. His parents, Joseph and Clara Cornforth, had 3 sons before immigrating to Canada in 1907. Sydney was the youngest, and the first to enlist amongst the first volunteers, in October 1914. His older brother Robert would serve with the Forestry Corps towards the end of the war. The oldest son Joseph would move to Alberta where he married, had 9 kids, and was considered a pioneer of the west by the time he passed away in 1974.
Prior to the war, Sydney was a Core Maker, possibly building sand cores for metal castings, clay cores for iron pipe or metal cores for building tile. After his October 1914 enlistment, he was sent to Bermuda for training, and returned to Canada in July 1914. After arriving in France in November 1915 with the Royal Canadian Regiment as a Private, Sydney would quickly move up the ranks to Sergeant within a 3-month period from October 1916 to December 1916. In a letter to his parents after his death, Captain Hugh Bell noted that
“for a long time I had the honor of being your son’s officer, and he was in every way a splendid soldier, absolutely fearless, and very capable. He was a great favorite with both officers and all the men, and we all knew that anything we had to do would be done well. What made him most valuable in the trenches was that he was always cheerful and in good spirits.”
The Royal Canadian Regiment war diary lists significant activity amongst the regiment leading up to the initial April 9th assault on Vimy Ridge. The troops were preparing the trenches with additional sandbags and reinforcements, outfitting all the Bombers and Rifle Grenadiers with ammunition, and working on plans for where the wire would be cut prior to the assault. The war diary for 9 April 1917 is so detailed that it needed to be covered fully in an appendix, with the diary entry only listing the many names of officers killed on that day. As part of the first wave at Vimy, the first objective for the RCR was to secure ARTILLERIE WEG, FEATHER and FAMINE Trenches, and then to connect ARTILLERIE WEG and BRITT TRENCH as the final objective to consolidate the position.
Captain Bell noted in his letter to Sydney’s parents that
“after all the German trenches had been captured a German shot your brave boy and wounded him in the side. At first, we thought that his injury was not serious, and he was immediately carried out to hospital. After he arrived to hospital his wound proved to be more serious than was at first thought, although everything was done for him from the first and receiving all possible care, all after being in the hospital two days he died.” Sydney died at No 6 Casualty Clearing Station on 11 April 1917.
Sydney Cornforth is buried in Barlin Communal Cemetery Extension, Noeux-les-Mines France. He was 21 years old.
