Here are two articles written on the occasion of his retirement from the Commercial Gas Company. The first is from the 'Copartnership Herald', Vol. V, no. 54 (Aug. 1935):
MR. SYDNEY MADDOCKS
THERE is small need to introduce to our readers Mr. Sydney Maddocks, whose portrait we are privileged to reproduce as our Frontispiece this month. As Registrar to the Company, Secretary of the Copartnership and of the Approved Society, he came into close contact for many years with all grades of the Company's employees and Staff. By them he was regarded not only as a much respected officer of the Company, hut also as a true Copartner, a wise and sympathetic counsellor, and a loyal friend. His retirement after forty-six years' service brings a feeling of personal loss which is only softened by the hope that he will enjoy relief from his labours for many happy years to come.
To THE COPARTNERSHIP HERALD he has given in generous measure of his wide knowledge and deep understanding. Indeed, there has not been an issue that has not contained a contribution above the familiar initials, 'S.M.' But that is not all. He has been, too, its constant friend, ever ready with encouragement, help, and advice. We rejoice, therefore, that Mr. Maddocks proposes to continue his good offices, so that the publication of his portrait in our pages marks not only the closing of a chapter, but the opening of a new one.
The second is from an unmarked source:
A STUDENT OF STEPNEY'S PAST.
IT is to be hoped that the retirement under the age limit from the post of registrar of the Commercial Gas Company will not mean that Mr. Sydney Maddocks will give up his association with East London. For many years he has been an earnest investigator of the history of Stepney and his articles in the Co-Partnership Herald, the admirably edited magazine published in connection with the Gas Company, have shown him to be a keen student of East London antiquities. He has not been content to accept the usual records to which writers have access, but has been at pains to find out for himself facts about old Stepney which are not generally known. The result has been that any article which emanates from the pen of Mr. Maddocks is more than ordinarily interesting. He himself comes of a well-known Stepney family and can recall an East London of which the present inhabitants know little or nothing. His brother, the late Mr. Fred Maddocks, was for many years a Rate Collector and himself compiled an interesting pamphlet on the past history of Ratcliff. Mr. Sydney Maddocks was not content to confine himself to one parish but has, at one time or another, written about most of the districts of East London. I am glad to see that at its last meet ing the Stepney Borough Council paid a tribute to the self-sacrificing efforts of him as one of Stepney's historians. It so often happens that such recognition is reserved for obituary recognition, a much less satisfactory acknow ledgment of a worthy citizen's services to the community. Fortunately Mr. Maddocks is still very much alive and I hope that his retirement from the Commercial Gas Company will enable him to devote his increased leisure to further study of our past records. It is an almost inexhaustible mine of unfailing interest in which the earnest student may delve with reasonable expectation of finding fresh treasures. It requires both skill and experience to obtain useful results and in Mr. Maddocks we have just the man for the job. It is work which he obviously enjoys and he has the ability to present pictues of olden days with life-like fidelity. Now that he has the time to do it he would do well to consider the publication of a volume in which his many articles could be collected. It might not command a large sale, but it would possibly pay for itself and the book would be of permanent value to students, besides being attractive to the general reader. Such a work, placed in the hands of senior students of secondary schools, would give them a knowledge of East London which could not otherwise be obtained.