Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'Stanley was the elder son of Herbert Edward Sugden, born in Brighouse, and Ada (nee Scarth) of Thorpe Hall, Wakefield. Herbert worked his way up from spinner to a worsted yarn salesman by 1901. He also married well as Ada’s father owned and farmed 120 acres. This may account for the fact that even when he was employed as a spinner, their household included two servants. When Herbert died in 1913, he left effects to his widow worth £2300. When she died in 1941, she left £30,000 to their daughters.
Their two sons both attended Bradford Grammar School in the opening years of the twentieth century, Stanley from 1905-1908.
In May 1914, when he was 19, Stanley decided to become a “Saturday night soldier” in the Territorial Force, created for home defence.
There was at that time no rumour of war. In common with about one hundred former BGS
pupils, he joined H Company of the 6th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment. He too worked in the wool trade and lived with his mother at 10 Claremont, Great Horton. His medical inspection recorded he was only 5 feet 4 1/2 inches tall, when the minimum height for the Regular Army was 5’ 6”. In August 1914, men of his height were rejected. His health was stated to be good. A little more than two months later, Britain was at war.
When the battalion was summoned to parade on 5 August 1914, the day after the declaration of war, Sugden was among them. At first they slept on the hard floors of the Drill Hall at Belle Vue Barracks and the Schools. A week later they were sent by train to Selby, where they were billeted in houses, before moving into camp on 19 August. The men trained in companies, varied by long battalion route marches to harden their feet, and by guard duty. German raids were expected on the coast. However, Sugden’s health had already broken down. On 20 August he was discharged as medically unfit, suffering from “a chill and a strained heart”. He died at his widowed mother’s home in Bradford on 4 January 1915. He was buried in Scholemoor cemetery, Bradford (Section: 2a Grave Number: 484).
His younger brother Ben Roy Sugden would also serve in the war and died in northern Russia on 30 December 1918.'