Sydney was educated at Grammar School, Market Harborough, and at Edinburgh University - entering in 1894, he qualified M.B., Ch.B. in 1899. He then held the posts of house-surgeon at the Poplar Hospital and at the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich. Soon after he went out as district officer to the British South African Administration, becoming acting principal medical officer in North East Rhodesia and a justice of the peace. Impaired health caused him to return home, and he went into general practice at Frizington, Cumberland, where he held the appointments of parochial medical officer and public vaccinator, as certifying factory surgeon, and as medical officer to the Post Office. On the outbreak of war, after having been refused a commission on the grounds of ill-health, he offered his voluntary help to the London Hospital, where his brother was house governor. He was eventually granted a temporary commission in the R.A.M.C. in 1917, and was put in charge of the wounded officers' section of the hospital. Sydney was the son of the Rev. W E Morris of Market Harborough, Leicestershire.