Story
Sydney was born in the small village of Millington, East Yorkshire, and was the son of the Vicar of St Margaret’s Church, Millington (pictured below left), Rev. William Robert Griesbach (1802-1861, below centre), and his second wife Hannah Singleton (1807-1882, below right), who married in Great Givendale on 22nd February 1836. The village of Millington still has less than 300 people living in it today. Sydney’s grandfather was German-born, Karl Frederick Ludwig Griesbach (1760-1835), who brought his family over to England in 1773. He was a relative of the German Biblical Scholar, Johann Jakob Griesbach (1745-1812).
Sydney, however, opted to pursue a medical career, rather than religious. In 1861, he was lodging and studying as a medical pupil with a practicing surgeon Dr Benjamin Holwell at 34 Park Avenue, Leeds, and became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1866. By 1871, he was the assistant surgeon at Garforth, was admitted on the Medical Register on 31st October 1871, and married Mary Kate Kitchen (1851-1904) in Swillington on 17th August 1872, and they moved into Lowther House, Garforth (pictured below, house on the left):
Sydney joined the Zetland Lodge of Freemasons, Leeds on 19th January 1872, became licenced with the Royal College, Edinburgh in 1878, and went into partnership with the Aberford Surgeon John Edward Ellerton (1824-1893), being listed as Surgeons, Apothecaries and Accouchettrs. This partnership was dissolved on 31st March 1879.
Dr. Griesbach was the surgeon for Peckfield Colliery, and gathered with other doctors at the pit top on the morning of the disaster, preparing to render assistance to the survivors. By around noon, the 42 survivors had been brought to the surface, and oxygen had been administered to those suffering most with the effects of after-damp poisoning. Sydney also entered the pit to give assistance and was present at the pit top for the next few days, administering oxygen to many members of the rescue parties who had to be removed from the pit due to the effects of inhaling after-damp gas. On 2nd May, he attended the last man to be brought out of the mine alive, William Naylor Whitaker, and treated him, along with leading expert Dr. John Scott Haldane. They were able to help William regain consciousness, but he died later the same day at Leeds General Infirmary.
Sydney was still living in Garforth as a widower in 1911, and went travelling to Argentina in 1914. He passed away in Hampshire on 2nd April 1915, and 5 days later was brought back to Garforth for burial with his wife Mary Kate. His children moved down to Sussex.
30th April 1896. The Peckfield Colliery Disaster at Micklefield 