HAVING told the story of Colchester’s Military Heart Hospital, historian Heather Johnson has also researched one of its most well-known patients.

The Military Heart Hospital was set up next to the Military Hospital, but was believed to be separate from it, in order to deal with the large number of First World War suffering heart problems as a result of the conflict.

The war office, explains Heather, was desperate to reduce the numbers of them being pensioned out of the military prematurely because of what it saw as minor ailments so they were sent to the heart hospital to recover.

There was already a heart hospital in London, but this was struggling to cope with the sheer number of soldiers being referred.

Once at the hospital, based at the Sabroan Barracks, they underwent an exercise regime and convalesced.

READ MORE: Military Hospital helped soldiers during the First World War

Heather explains among this number was the famous cartoonist Sidney Conrad Strube.

Born in 1892, in London, Sidney was the son of German Licensed Victualler Conrad Strube and his English wife Martha.

Braintree and Witham Times:

  • Creative - he based his cartoons on real-life people

Sidney, his father and younger brother Percival became British citizens in 1895.

By 1911, adds Heather, Sidney was an art student and was known to many as George rather than his given name.

She continues : “He had had his first cartoon printed in the Daily Express in September 1912 and signed a contract as a freelance cartoonist with the newspaper soon afterwards.

“He was a well-known cartoonist by the time World War One broke out.”

On October 29 1915 Sidney was accepted into the 28th Battalion of the London Regiment, giving his occupation as a cartoonist.

Sidney went off to France, with the British Expeditionary Force, on 16 November 1917 but by January 1918 he had been sent to Colchester from Bermondsey Military Hospital having been diagnosed with Valvular Disease of the heart.

Once in Essex, this was downgraded to Disordered Action of the Heart, which was also known as soldier’s heart.

“He was set an exercise regime which, his Army Service Record states, was ‘well tolerated’”.

Braintree and Witham Times:

  • Camp - the Sobroan Barracks in Colchester in around 1915

While at the hospital in Colchester he used his artistic skills to create caricatures of medical staff members. seen here in some examples which form part of Sidney’s legacy, before he was discharged.

“It is reported that Sidney was not allowed to leave the Heart Hospital until he had drawn every officer there!” says Heather.

After being demobilised in February 1919 Sidney went back to his career at the Daily Express.

It was during this time he became known for his Little Man character which Heather explains evolved from a Colchester Military Heart Hospital patient into a long-suffering figure who became a national symbol

Sidney, who married Daily Express fashion artist Marie Dorothy Allwright in 1927, died in 1956 leaving his estate worth more than £36,000 to his widow.