Sidney Hindmarsh Frost was born and grew up in Colchester. During the war he served in the army and was killed in action in September 1915. His father lived in Orchard Street.

Sidney was born in 1896 in Colchester, the son of Ernest Joseph Frost and Ellen Emily Spalding (nee Frost). His father had been born in 1865 in Paddington, London; his mother in 1866 in Colchester. The couple had married in 1887.

Sidney’s siblings, all Colchester-born, included Robert Joseph Frost (1888-1892), Percy Isaac Frost (born in 1889), Olive Emily Frost (1893-1902), Alfred Clarence Frost (born on 4th April 1898, died in 1974), Edward Burnett Frost (born on 16th May 1901, died in 1969), and Arthur Powell Frost (born in 1904, died in 1962).

The 1901 census found five year-old Sidney living with his parents, three siblings and a cousin at 162 Military Road in Colchester. His father was a printer’s compositor.

A decade later the 1911 census recorded 15 year-old Sidney living with three siblings, his mother and grandmother at 1 Victoria Place, Cannon Street, Colchester. He was employed as a telegraph messenger. Meanwhile his 47 year-old father was boarding at 13 Tower Hill in Brentwood and still working as a compositor, having left the family home.

Sidney’s father also lived in Chelmsford and was resident in the town in 1906, 1909 and 1913, at the latter date living at Freston Terrace in Orchard Street.

Sidney enlisted at Colchester. He was killed in action on 27th September 1915 while serving as Private 14633 in the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment.

On 31st March 1916 the Essex County Chronicle reported:

“Pt. Sidney Hindmarsh Frost, who was killed in action, was the son of Mr. Ernest J. Frost. of Freston Terrace, Orchard Street, Chelmsford. The gallant young soldier, who was 20 years old, joined the Colours at Kitchener’s first call to arms, entering the 7th Batt., Northamptonshire Regt. His desire at the time was to join the Essex Regt., being an Essex lad, but at the time that corps was full.”

Sidney has no known grave and is commemorated by the Loos Memorial, Pas de Calais, France. He is not commemorated by the Civic Centre Memorial in Chelmsford nor the war memorial at St. John’s Church, Moulsham.

His father was the author of ‘Drums of Essex’, ‘The Mystery of the Glowing Eyes, A psychological romance etc.’ (1932), and ‘Is the Human Soul Electric?’(1920). He also wrote under the pseudonym ‘Old Pioneer’ in his writings on homeopathy, being an Associate of the British Homeopathic Association for more than thirty years. He died in Chelmsford in 1937; his wife seven years later.

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