Biography of Sidney Francis Spurgeon
Born at Quebec Road, Thorpe Hamlet, Norwich on 26 July 1882 & christened in Yarmouth on 3 September 1882. By 1884 the family moved to Besthorpe, near Attleborough, Norfolk. In 1885 the family fell on hard times, and they moved to Battersea, London (see 1891 census). Age 18, in the 1901 census (part 1,part 2) Sidney's living at 3 York Road, Old Brentford with his parents, 5 brothers: Cecil (22), Walter (10), Charles (8), Arthur (6) & Harold (5), sister Hilda (2), and a servant (Ellen Neighbour, 17). Both Sidney and Cecil are working at that time as iron moulders, probably at Beldams with their father.
Age 23, he sailed on the SS Lake Manitoba from Liverpool on 11 April 1905 with his future wife Emily Purdey, arriving in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada on 23 April 1905. By July 1906 he was boarding at Brandon, Manitoba in Canada. Moved to California with Emily and married her on 25 April 1907 at Alameda (see Oakland Tribune 7 May 1907).
By 1910 he was a moulder in an iron foundry, living with his wife, new-born son Sydney, and brother Cecil in rented accomodation (1205 Peralta Street, Alameda, California). Sidney started a foundry business Pentalum Foundry in partnership with Charles Stayner in 1912; it was dissolved in 1914. He also injured his hand badly in 1914.
His World War I Draft Registration Card describes Sidney as medium build, medium height, with light brown hair & blue eyes, living at 266 Eighth Street, Contra Costa, working as a molder (foreman) for the Columbia Steel Company, Pittsburg, Contra Costa.
In the 1920 census he's living in Cumberland St, Pittsburg, Contra Costa, California with his family & lodger (Frederick Bunyan): both he and the lodger are moulders at a steel plant. By 1930 he owns his home at 451 Santa Ynez, Sacramento, California, living with his wife, brother Charles, and son (oddly listed illegibly as Davey W, but must actually be Sidney W), and is described as an employer.
His wife died in 1935; by the 1940 census he's living in block 137, house 826, 7th Street, Sacramento, and listed as a garage proprietor.
In his World War II Draft Registration Card, 25 April 1942 part1, part2 he's described as 5' 7½", 164lb, blue eyes, brown hair, with a ruddy complexion, living at 1618 High Street, Sacremento. He's listed as working at Bucks Lake Lodge, Quincy, Plumas, California, a vacation resort over 160 miles north of Sacremento!
Age 71 he married Alice Abbott on 23 January 1954, and died age 77 on 26 August 1959. He was a member of the Pittsburg Lodge of Free & Accepted Masons (No. 429) - see the Sacremento Bee orbituary.
