Pte. ROBERTS S.C. 9740 1st, 2nd and 8th Battalions, Royal Scots Fusiliers Regiment

Pte. Roberts, Sidney Chart. DoD: 19/09/1918. Age: 28. Son of: Charles and Harriet Roberts of Station Cottage, Horsmonden. Occupation: Farm Labourer. Unit Text: 8th Battalion. Cemetery: SARIGOL MILITARY CEMETERY, KRISTON.

Pte. Sidney Chart Roberts, Royal Scots Fusiliers, was the second son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Roberts, of 5 Station Cottages, Horsmonden, Kent.

Sidney, a popular lad in the village, worked for Messrs. Smith and Manwaring who were farmers at Hayle Farm in Horsmonden prior to joining the Army.

In 1907 he joined the Militia at Canterbury and served in Gibraltar, Ireland and Scotland, as well as five years in South Africa, over two years in France and a further two years in Salonika.

He was one of the first to land at Zeebrugge in the early days of September, 1914.

Pte Roberts received a gunshot wound in the abdomen during the disastrous frontal attack against a strongly fortified Bulgarian position known as Pip Ridge in the 3rd Battle of Doiran on the Macedonian front, 18th September 1918. Sadly, he died the following day in a Stationary Hospital in Salonika.

Three brothers were on active service when Sidney died – Charles and Harry being in France and William on a destroyer.
Sidney’s father, Charles, worked as a labourer for South East Rail when the Hawkhurst Branch Line was being built and then as a Platelayer at the newly erected Horsmonden Station.

The personal inscription on Sidney’s headstone from his parents read: ‘He died that we may live’