Sidney Dormer Moulding

Home page

Appears as:

Born:

Parents:

Unit:

No.:

Rank:

Died:

Grave/Memorial:  		Moulding, Sidney D

1884, Woking, Surrey

Alfred and Lucy (née Attfield)

8th Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment

N/A

Lieutenant

22 August 1915, Turkey, age 32

Final resting place unknown. Helles Memorial, Eceabat İlçesi, Çanakkale, Türkiye. Name listed
on Panel 156. 		   

Biography:
Sidney Dormer Moulding was born in Knaphill, Woking, in 1884. He was the son and third child of Alfred, a butcher, and Lucy Annie (née Attfield).
He had four brothers and a sister.

Sidney’s brother, Walter William Moulding, and two of his cousins are also commemorated on the St John’s Memorial.

Sidney presumably attended Knaphill School. After finishing school, Sidney became a teacher, initially at Monument Hill School, Woking, and then at
Thursley School, where he was headmaster when war broke out.

Sidney enlisted, as a private, in the King’s Royal Rifles Regiment. Within a couple of weeks, he was made sergeant. Shortly afterwards, he obtained his
commission and was subsequently transferred to the 8th Battalion The Northamptonshire Regiment. He was posted to the Dardanelles in June 1915,
attached to 1st Battalion The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. He described his first day in the trenches in a letter to his brother: ‘He says soon after he arrived a
huge shell exploded within ten yards of him, but did nothing more than cover him with filth and splinters, and on the afternoon of the same day he was
struck in the leg by a piece of half-spent shrapnel which only raised a bruise. On another occasion, when looking over the parapet of the trench – as the
Turks had been quiet for some time – one of them who had approached quite close fired at him at six yards range and missed. The next morning, corpses
of Turks, he states, were piled feet high in front of the British trenches.’

In the early days of September 1915, the local press was reporting that the family had been informed that Sidney had been wounded (severity unknown)
on 21 August. On 25 September the West Surrey Times stated that the rumour that Sidney had died from his wounds was unsubstantiated. It was thought
that he may have been taken prisoner but, on 6 July 1916, he was presumed dead. He most likely died on 22 August 1915, possibly having been shot a second time.

Sidney Dormer Moulding’s final resting place is unknown; he is commemorated on Panel 156 of the Helles Memorial, Eceabat İlçesi, Çanakkale, Türkiye.


The Helles Memorial serves the dual function of Commonwealth battle memorial for the whole Gallipoli campaign and place of commemoration for many of those Commonwealth
servicemen who died there and have no known grave.



Sidney is also commemorated on the memorial tablet within Knaphill Holy Trinity Church.