Ellis Wellwood Sifton

Ellis Wellwood Sifton (12 October 1891 – 9 April 1917) was a Canadian soldier. Sifton was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Sifton was born in Wallacetown, Ontario and was a farmer when he enlisted in October 1914.

Victoria Cross One of four soldiers to earn the Victoria Cross in the Battle of Vimy Ridge (the others were Thain Wendell MacDowell, William Johnstone Milne and John George Pattison), Sifton was 25 years old, and a Lance Sergeant in the 18th (Western Ontario) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

On 9 April 1917 at Neuville-St.-Vaast, France, during an attack on enemy trenches, Lance-Sergeant Sifton's company was held up by machine-gun fire.

His VC is held by the Elgin County Pioneer Museum in St Thomas, Ontario.

Two soldiers tending to the grave of Lance-Sergeant E. W. Sifton, February 1918