Sydney Gleave Roughsedge was born on 31st May 1896 at Preston Brook and baptised on 27th August that year at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in the village. He was baptised on the same day as his two-year-old sister Mary. He was the youngest son of Thomas Henry (born Dutton) and Sarah Agnes (nee Scragg) who was also born at Dutton. The father was a canal porter.
The 1901 census showed that the majority of the family were living at Tunnel Top in Dutton. The two eldest children, Henry (17) and Clara (15), were living with their maternal grandparents, Peter and Elizabeth Scragg, a few doors away. Peter Scragg was a captain of a canal barge. The others who were living at home were Elizabeth (13), Sarah (11), Peter (10), Mary (8) and Sydney who was four years old. All the seven children would survive to adulthood.
When Sydney was 14 years old in 1911, it was not clear from the census as to whether he had yet left school. He was living at home with his parents and Elizabeth, Peter and Mary. Peter was working as a joiner/carpenter. Henry was a clerk at the Whiston Institution in Prescot, Clara was a sick nurse at Congleton Union Workhouse and Sarah was a housemaid at the fever hospital in Dutton. Henry and Peter would both enlist in the Great War. Henry was killed in 1917.
Sydney became an Able Seaman in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the Great War. Nothing is known of his war service details. He was given the service number R/6697. At the end of the war he was awarded the British War Medal. He was honoured on the Manchester Ship Canal Company Roll of Honour for 1914-1916.
In late 1932 Sydney married Dorothy Mackie from Halton Road in Runcorn. She was four years younger than him.
Sarah Agnes died in 1934 and Thomas Henry died in 1944.
According to the 1939 register the couple lived on Main Street in Halton village, Runcorn and Sydney was a general labourer for the County Council. They had no children.
Sydney died in Runcorn in 1957, predeceasing Dorothy by five years. He was 61 years old.