Sidney Arthur Westrip was born and brought up in Springfield. He married in 1932 and had two children. He was one of eight people killed, including his wife and younger child, when their house in Lower Anchor Street was hit by a German bomb in May 1943.
Sidney Arthur WESTRIP, Civilian
Killed during an air raid at Lower Anchor Street, Chelmsford. Aged 37
Among the dead was Sidney, one of eight people who died as a result of a 250 kg high explosive bomb which scored a direct hit on his home, 22 Lower Anchor Street. One account suggests it hit the air raid shelter in which the householders were sheltering. Sidney's wife and their lodger were also killed in the incident. His baby daughter June, was pulled out of the wrecked property with serious injuries and died later that day in Chelmsford & Essex Hospital. Neighbours Henry William Smith and Joan Miriam Smith at number 24, and William Judd and Mary Judd at number 19 also died.
The bomb demolished numbers 21, 22, 23, 24 & 25, while numbers 19, 20 & 26 were damaged beyond repair, and numbers 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 were seriously damaged. Across the road the explosion seriously damaged numbers 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 & 97 which stood opposite the scene of the bomb.
Sidney, his wife and their daughter were buried at Chelmsford Borough Cemetery (grave 5419) on 22nd May 1943.
110726
Sidney was born in Springfield in 1906, one of seven children of Arthur Westrip (1873-1926) and Agnes Mary Westrip (nee Clark) (born c1877). His parents had married at All Saints' Church in Springfield on 7th August 1899.
Sidney's siblings, all Springfield-born, were: Ethel M. Westrip (born c1898), Gertrude Edith Westrip (born in 1900), Winifred Doris Westrip (born in 1902), Thomas Albert Westrip (1904-1977), Frank Stanley Westrip (1908-1913), and Henry Edward Westrip (1910-1989).
In 1911 the census recorded four year-old Sidney living with his parents and six siblings at 59 Arbour Lane, Springfield. At the time his father was a labourer at the Chelmsford electrical engineer's Crompton & Company.
Sidney's cousin John Mitson Westrip was killed in 1917 and is commemorated by Chelmsford's War Memorial.
In 1931 Sidney married Cissie Kezia Goldsmith. The couple had a son, born in 1932, and a daughter, June, born in Chelmsford in 1940.
In 1942 a German air raid claimed the life of David Alan Westrip, the son of one of Sidney's cousins.
By 1943 Sidney was living with his wife, daughter and a lodger, Gwendoline Iris James, at 22 Lower Anchor Street in Chelmsford. The property was an old terraced house on the road’s northern side between The Orange Tree and The Queen’s Head pubs. In the early hours of 14th May that year Chelmsford experienced what was to prove to be its heaviest air raid of the war. In a sharp attack that lasted for just over an hour, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, dropped a large number of high explosive, incendiaries and parachute landmines which caused extensive damage to residential, commercial and industrial properties in the town, and led to the deaths of more than 50 people.
In 1942 a German air raid claimed the life of David Alan Westrip, the son of one of Sidney's cousins.
By 1943 Sidney was living with his wife, daughter and a lodger, Gwendoline Iris James, at 22 Lower Anchor Street in Chelmsford. The property was an old terraced house on the road’s northern side between The Orange Tree and The Queen’s Head pubs. In the early hours of 14th May that year Chelmsford experienced what was to prove to be its heaviest air raid of the war. In a sharp attack that lasted for just over an hour, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, dropped a large number of high explosive, incendiaries and parachute landmines which caused extensive damage to residential, commercial and industrial properties in the town, and led to the deaths of more than 50 people.
