Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Sydney Harcourt Hildyard was born on 17 June 1883 at Lyttelton, the youngest son and seventh of the eight children of William and Betsy Ann (née Tibballs) Hildyard, of Lyttelton. William Hildyard had married Betsy Ann Tibballs in 1870 at Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, where two daughters were born before they came to Lyttelton in about 1873 and had six more children. Betsy Ann who was born in England migrated to Tasmania with her family in 1861. William Hildyard who served on the Lyttelton Borough Council, was lodge member and vice-president of the Lyttelton Young Men’s Club, died in November 1899, after a very brief illness.

Sydney was educated at Lyttelton Borough School, leaving there for Waimate at the end of 1894. He had received a Standard IV attendance prize at Lyttelton in 1892. Receiving instruction in secondary subjects at the Waimate District High School, he gained good marks in Senior Class English, French Course I and Latin Second Course in early 1899. In July he received a prize for fourth place in No. 2 Division of the secondary department. The second daughter of the Hildyard family, Edith Mable Hildyard had married George Pitcaithly in 1894. Edith and George lived for many years at Waimate where he was a schoolmaster. This was the reason, it seems for both Sydney and Nora having an association with Waimate.

After marching through the streets of Christchurch, Sydney Harcourt Hildyard and his fellow servicemen embarked at Lyttelton for the South African War in April 1902. For a few years after the war, he was resident at Waimate, employed as a clerk. He was selected to represent Waimate Old Boys in the football match to be played against Excelsior at Oamaru on Easter Monday 1906. He had been selected in a club team the previous year. Sydney probably returned to Lyttelton (or Christchurch) about 1908-1909. On 15 March 1915 at Trentham, he enlisted for service in World War One. A clerk (for Dalgety and Company, Christchurch), single and of Church of England affiliation, he named his mother as next-of-kin – Mrs B. A Hildyard, Lyttelton. On 15 June 1917 Sydney was wounded. A contingent of 371 sick and wounded soldiers arrived at Wellington on 18 September 1917, including S. H. Hildyard, 11/1397, of Lyttelton. He was discharged on 7 December 1917, no longer physically fit for war service on account of wounds received in action, and was awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He had served in all campaigns.

By 1919, Sydney was in Hawke’s Bay, sheep farming at Arapawanui, Napier, where he remained until retiring to Hastings in the late 1940s. Sydney Harcourt Hildyard who outlived all his siblings, died at Havelock North on 23 June 1959, aged 76 years. He was buried in the RSA Section of Hastings Cemetery. His sister Nora (Nona) Mildred Hildyard who served with the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, was drowned on 23 October 1915 in the Marquette tragedy.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [09 June 2026]; Waimate Daily Advertiser, 4 & 18 February 1899, Oamaru Mail, 1 July 1899, 14 April 1906, Lyttelton Times, 21 April 1902, Evening Post, 17 September 1917, Dominion, 18 September 1917 (Papers Past) 09 June 2026]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [28 June 2016]; Hastings Cemetery headstone transcription & burial record [09 June 2026]

External Links

• Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph record
• Military personnel file

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.