Myers Sykes

Myers Sykes was the son of Wilfred and Mary Sykes (née Myers). Myers' parents were married in Birstall St Peter, Yorkshire, on 18 July 1865 and Myers was born in Morley, Dewsbury, (West Riding), in 1879 (J/A/S). In 1881 the family was living in Morley; his father was a cloth dresser. His father died in September 1884 and it is likely that his mother died before the 1891 Census as by that date Myers and an older sister, Elizabeth A (25), a cloth weaver, were boarders in the household of Martha Bentley (35) single, also a cloth weaver, on Queen Street, Morley. By 1901 Myers (21), a cabinet maker, was living in Harrogate as a boarder in the home of Webster Broughton, a joiner, and his family. His wife Edith Facer was born in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, on 13 March 1874, the daughter of Fred and Sarah Facer (née Strange) who were married in Leighton Buzzard in 1874 (O/N/D). The registration of Edith's birth has not yet been traced, but she was baptised (Facer) in Leighton Buzzard parish church on 29 November 1874. However, by 1881 her parents were living on Fleet Street, Litchurch, Derby; her father was an engine fitter with the Midland Railway. Edith had several siblings, including Frederick Arthur (b. 14 May 1883). Edith had left the family home by 1901 and was working as a shopwoman (confectioner) and sharing a house in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, with three other people. Myers and Edith were married in Nottingham in 1908 (J/A/S) and had at least five children. According to the census information, the first two children, Amy and Fred, were not born in Nottingham although their births were registered there: Amy Lilian b. Bedfordshire 18 July 1909; Fred b. Leighton Buzzard 29 July 1910, Albert b. 15 December 1912; Mary b. 8 September 1914 and Eric Myers b. 1 October 1916. In 1911 Myers (32), a joiner in the building trade, and Edith (37) were living at 25 Crossman Street, Nottngham, with their two children Amy (1) and Fred (8 months). Their three other children, Albert, Mary and Eric, were born between 1912 and 1916. The CWGC record gives his widow's address as 4 Woodbine Terrace, Carrington, Nottingham, while the record of UK Soldiers Died in the Great War shows that Myers was living in Sherwood when he attested. The suburb of Sherwood is adjacent to Carrington and so the family might have already been living at Woodbine Terrace when he enlisted. Myers' widow was awarded a pension of 37 shillings and 11 pence a week for herself and her five children, payable from 27 June 1919. However both the pension record and the entry on the Register of Soldiers' Effects, show that her daughter Mary (b. 1914) was in the guardianship of Thirza Facer. Thirza (b. Derby 17 October 1887), the daughter of John and Emma Allen, had married Edith's brother, Frederick Arthur, at Derby Rosehill Wesleyan Chapel in 1912. The pension record of 1919 gave Thirza's address as 23 Whittaker Street, Derby, which was her family's home in 1911, suggesting that she and Frederick were either living with her parents in 1919 or had the tenancy of the property. Albert married Dorothy M Edgley (b. 23 February 1916) in 1937 and they had a daughter Pauline the same year. In 1939 when the England & Wales Register was compiled Albert, a progress closer at Nottingham Royal Ordnance Factory, and his family were living on Turntoch Avenue, Nottingham, together with his widowed mother Edith and his sister Amy Lilian, a millinery saleswoman. Edith died in 1944 and her son Albert in 1989. Amy Lillian married Edward Harby in 1941 and they had a daughter, Brenda, in 1943 (J/F/M). There is then a record of Amy's marriage to Ernest W Horobin in 1945 (J/F/M Nottingham). Amy died on 29 October 1998 (reg. Staffordshire); Ernest had predeceased her. Their three siblings, Fred, Mary and Eric, have not yet been traced after 1919.