Sydney Faggetter was born in Lavender Cottage, Pirbright, Surrey the eldest son of Frank Faggetter, a bricklayer, and Ellen Susannah his wife. They must have just moved to the village as his older sister Lizzie was born in Eastleigh, Hampshire.
He appears to have started school at a very young age, he is in the Admission Register of Pirbright School as starting on the 14th of January 1893 when he was a month away from his 3rd birthday!
By 1897 Sydney is listed as living at Rose Cottage, Connaught Road, Brookwood and he left the school on his 14th birthday.
He enlisted as a Private in 4th Queen’s Own Hussars on the 14th of March 1906. He served with them in Ireland and deployed with them in August of 1914 to France then Belgium.
Sydney served in the Regiments Machine Gun Squadron and in 1915 was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps Cavalry which was established to provide mobile firepower by integrating heavy Vickers machine guns with cavalry brigades, giving horse-mounted troops significant firepower.
Trench warfare paid a heavy price on Cavalry regiments and Infantry battalions, to break the stalemate the land ship would be developed and refined into what would be known as the tank.
The Heavy Section was formed on the 1st of May 1916, becoming the Heavy Branch in November of that year. Men of ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies of this branch crewed the first tanks in action at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, during the Battle of the Somme on 15-16th of September 1916 and throughout the Autumn.
In July 1917, the Heavy Branch separated from the MGC to become the Tank Corps, later called the Royal Tank Regiment. Sydney served on the first tanks from 1916 until November 1918.
Sydney would survive and would continue his service until 13 Oct 1925. Sadly His brother Reginald, who served with the Royal West Surrey Regiment, died at Somme.
In 1919 he came home and married a local girl Edith Collyer, they never had any children.
When the Second World War broke out he enlisted again serving until 1940 when he was 50 years old. He stated he’d previously been a Railway Porter. Edith died on the 28th of December 1943 at the hospital in Warren Road, Guildford and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery with her parents and siblings.
Just over a year later Sydney remarried Elizabeth Mary Elwick nee Boylett. They lived at 8 Gibb’s Acre, Pirbright until their respective deaths.
Sydney a pioneer Hussar who would see transitions from Sabre to machine gun and horse to tank.
