Thank you to John Callcut for letting us reproduce the following information, taken from his book: A Village at War. Newdigate in World War One.
Sidney John Burberry (or Jack as he was known) was one of the very first young men from Newdigate to enlist. He was born in 1985 and grew up at Woods Hill Cottage where he lived with his elderly grandparents, William and Fanny Lapworth, and his brother and sister. He became a baker’s assistant but joined up at the outbreak of the war and by November he found himself in the trenches at La Boutillerie. He died on the 21st November 1914. According to the regimental diaries the day had been spent improving the fire trenches and making racks for rifles which was very important as they so easily became clogged by mud. Strangely just two men were reported as wounded that day but Jack was killed and his body never found. He is remembered on the Ploegsteert Memorial. The memorial reads ‘To the glory of God and to the memory of 1147 officers and men of the forces of the British Empire, who fell fighting in the years 1914-1918 between the River Douve and the towns of Estaires and Furnes, whose names are here recorded but to whom the fortunes of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death’.
| Born | Newdigate, Surrey | |
| Lived | Newdigate, Surrey | |
| Son of | Sidney and Harriett Burberry of Wood Hill Cottage, Newdigate, Surrey | |
| Regiment | 2nd Battalion. The Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment | |
| Number | L/10692 | |
| Date of Death | 21st November 1914 | |
| Place of Death | Belgium | |
| Cause of Death | Killed in action | |
| Age | 19 | |
| Memorial | Ploegsteert Memorial, Comines-Warneton, Hainaut, Belgium |
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