Alfred Belk was born in one of the seven houses that formed Court 16 on Summer Street on 6th August 1896. Summer Street is between Weston Street and Mushroom Lane and behind what was the Fever Hospital on Winter Street.
Alfred’s father, Alfred Sayle, was a ‘spoon and fork filer’, a trade he had followed for at least 10 years. Alfred Sayle married Mary Ann Kitson at St George’s Church in 1896 and made their home on Summer Street where all their six children were born. There were five boys and one girl who was the only child who died in infancy.
During the summer of 1901 the family moved to 79 Heavygate Road, and a year later they moved again, this time to 6 Chatwin St which was opposite Crookesmoor School. Alfred began school at Western Road just after the family’s first move and transferred to Crookesmoor School as a result of the second move.
By 1910 the family had moved again, this time to one of the recently built houses on Pendeen Road which is near the top of Nethergreen Road. By this time, Alfred had finished school and was working as an office boy in a firm of accountants.
Notice in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph
During the War, Alfred served with the 7th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. He was taken Prisoner on 18th April 1917 during the Arras offensive. The German record of Prisoners suggests that he was in the vicinity of Oppy, a village North East of Arras when he was captured. He remained a PoW until the Armistice. After an anxious wait for news, his family received word that he was alive and a prisoner in Germany.
Alfred’s father, Alfred Syles, died in October 1917 at the early age of 42 years. He did at least know that his eldest son was alive. Alfred Sayles and his wife Mary Ann were both buried in Fulwood Graveyard. Whether Alfred knew that his father had died whilst he was a PoW is not known.
Back in Sheffield and living again in the family home on Pendeen Road, in 1921 Albert was recorded as a Bank Clerk with London Joint City and Midland Bank Limited at its branch on Bank Street. He progressed steadily at the bank and by 1939 was a qualified accountant.
Alfred married Dorothy Allot in 1925 and they had two children: George (born 1926) and Margaret (born 1932). At the outbreak of war in 1939, the family was living at Crosspool.
Alfred is only mentioned on one occasion in the local papers apart from his capture in 1917. In October 1939, he represented Captain G H Barker of the Midland Bank at the funeral of Herbert Bedford who was the principal of a firm of solicitors. Amongst the mourners were many solicitors and accountants along with directors of large steel firms.
Alfred Belk died in 1980