PRIVATE SIDNEY MILHAM
ROYAL SUSSEX REGIMENT
4TH NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 37
BURIED: BEERSHEBA WAR CEMETERY, ISRAEL
Sidney Milham was a gardener with St Leonard's-on-Sea Borough Council when he attested on 15 November 1915. He had not volunteered before this; he was a thirty-five-year-old married man with two children, Frederick Albert aged two and George Edward who was only three months old. However, the Derby Scheme had been introduced in the autumn of 1915 and men between the ages of 18 and 41 were being asked to attest their willingness to serve. Mrs Alice Milham perfectly expressed the terms of her husband's willingness in the inscription she chose for him.
Milham joined the 1/4th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment. After service in Gallipoli, this spent some time in Egypt before being sent to Palestine early in 1917 where Milham joined them in time for the Second Battle of Gaza, 17-19 April 1917. He was killed seven months later in the capture of Beersheba during the Third Battle of Gaza 27 October-7 November.
Twenty-seven years later, George Edward Milham, son of the man who 'went to war for the sake of peace' and 'died without hate that love might live', was killed in Italy on 17 January 1944 in the British attempt to cross the Garigliano River and breach the German Gustav Line. It was his wife who chose his inscription too:
He died that we might have
A better world to live in
Fond remembrance
Jeanne and sons