Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Syd enlisted in May 1915 aged 22 with his older brother Warren aged 25. Their younger brother Jack (John Soderic Hampton) had to wait until 1916 before he turned 18 and could enlist.

There were 2 older brothers Allan and Bob, a sister Rubina and the youngest boy Doug (my grandfather). Their father John Joseph was a Manxman and with his wife Anna Hampton they all lived in a house John Joseph, a joiner by trade, built in Thornley St Marrickville called Manx Villa (now heritage listed 23 Thornley St)

Sid first saw action at Gallipoli in the final month AIF troops were there. Warren who served with the !st Field Ambulance was stationed at that time at Sarpi Camp on Mudros with the Field Hospital.

When they were evacuated from Gallipoli they returned to Alexandria for a few weeks until they embarked for the Western Front.

After arriving in France, Syd was promoted to Lance Corporal in April.

Syd was part of the 7th reinforcements for the 1st Battalion 1st Brigade 1st Division and as such found himself in the first wave of the attack to capture Pozieres in the first hours of July 23 1916.

In that fateful charge he received a gun shot wound to the abdomen and was left lying in no man’s land for an unspecified amount of time.

He died of his wounds a week later in the nearby Warloy CCS on August 1 and is buried in the Warloy-Baillon CWG extension. 

His older brother Warren with the 1st Field Ambulance was also involved in the attack at Pozieres as a stretcher bearer. It is possible they had a chance to be together in the days leading up to that fateful charge but we have no personal records or diaries they may have kept.

Warren was also wounded on the night of the Pozieres charge but not before he had carried his wounded brother Sydney from the front line to a dressing station back some distance back.

I know this because in November 1916 Warren requested a Red Cross investigation into what happened to his brother while he was recovering from his injuries (GSW to right forearm) in a Reading war hospital unaware of Syd’s fate after he had carried him to the dressing station. 

As he too was wounded later that night/morning and evacuated from the battlefield eventually to England for convalescence, he had no way of checking on Syd’s condition other than eventually filing a Red Cross enquiry.

In the Red Cross report are statements by men who either were with Syd’s company in the charge or knew Syd and inquired after him at the Warloy CCS.

One statement describes how his sergeant (Sgt A V Steel) went out into no-mans land and picked Syd up and carried him back to where bearers took over (his brother Warren according to another man’s statement) 

He had suffered a gun shot wound to the abdomen and must have suffered untold agony lying in No Mans Land before being carried away by Sgt Steel and brother Warren eventually to Warloy CCS only to succumb to his wounds after a week of battling to stay alive.

Most of the statements speak highly of Syd as a mate and one attests that his mates chipped in to buy him a better cross than the rough one that was put on his grave. This is also mentioned in Ben Champion's War Diary on page 107 available online in the AWMs collection, however Champion errantly spells his name as Hampden.

Two of his great 1st Battalion mates J S Davidson and F J Chisholm both posted an In Memorium notice in the Sydney Morning Herald on the second anniversary of his death.

Warren and younger brother Jack both survived the war and returned to Australia alas without their dear brother Sydney no doubt counting themselves as lucky to have survived.