Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Corporal Sydney Crofts (Service No:260) served with the Militia (35th Engineers) before enlisting in the AIF as a Private on 15 March 1915. Private Crofts was attached to 28th Infantry Battalion on 29 June 1915 when he embarked from Fremantle for Gallipoli on board HMAT A11 Ascanius. Promoted to Corporal in France on 1 September 1916, he was at Fler, France when he was WiA (GSW thigh) on 5 November 1916 and evacuated to England. Corporal Crofts embarked from England for the RTA on 1 December 1918 on board HT Saxon and was attached to 28th Infantry Battalion at Discharge on 28 March 1919.

Sydney was born in Fremantle, WA in 1896, eldest of eight children of Sydney (Syd) Herbert Crofts (b1871 in Hertfordshire, England) and May Letitia Caporn (b1875 in Fremantle, WA). Syd had immigrated in 1890, and was employed by the JC Williamson Comic Opera Coy under the stage name of 'Syd Reidy'. Syd and May married in Fremantle in 1895 and lived in Fremantle, where Syd was Manager of a Distillery and worked for WAGR. By 1925 Syd and May were living in Mt Kokeby via Beverley, where Syd was a Commercial Traveller. Through the 1930s Syd and May lived in Toodyay, Wiluna and Kunoppin where Syd was a Hotelkeeper, and in 1932 establised a Garage in Kalgoorlie. Syd and May then settled in Perth where Syd was engaged in diverse businesses, moving to Rockingham in the early 1940s where he was a Farmer.

Sydney was working as an Engineer in Perth for Carrick Coy (Baker) when he enlisted in the AIF. In 1918 whilst convalescing in England, he married Ellen (Nellie) May Whatley (b1898 in Hampshire, England) and their first child, Thawlby, was born in Wiltshire in 1918. Sydney returned to Australia in December 1918 and Nellie and Thawlby arrived in Fremantle in 1919 on board the Benalla. Sydney and Nellie lived in Brookton, Narrogin, Fremantle and Northam - Sydney worked for WAGR as a Porter, Shunter and Guard. Nellie was admitted to the Wooroloo Sanitarium in 1922 and died from TB in 1926. Following Nellie's death, Sydney worked in Kalgoorlie as a Shunter with WAGR and in 1932 as a Mechanic at the 24 hour Garage established by his father. In 1932 he remarried, to Clyde (Clydie) Gertrude Ahern (b1902 in Greenough, WA) - Clydie was working as a Waitress at the Kellerberrin Hotel. By the late 1930s Sydney and Clydie had moved to Perth and Sydney served in the ACMF in WWII - as a Warrant Officer I (Service No:WP5964) with 19 Garrison battalion,  and was in Adelaide River, NT for six months (The only record of this service in in his NAA Service Record File for WWI and the WA Garden of Remebrance plaque). In the late 1940s Sydney changed his name (Sydney Charles Herbert Cruthers/Reidy-Croft) officially to Sydney Herbert Crofts and he and Clydie lived in Fremantle and Perth. Sydney was attached to HQ Training Depot 30 Cadet Battalion (Service No:5/215) in the 1940s and 1950s. Sydney died in 1972 and Clydie in 1988.