A
City of Rockdale
First World War
Centenary Commemoration
Website
https://sites.google.com/site/ww1rockdaleenlistees
(Known as ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’)
Charles Henry Davis © 2015
A City of Rockdale
First World War Centenary Commemoration website
https://sites.google.com/site/ww1rockdaleenlistees
(Known as ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’)
At the time the distinction was important – a century or so later?
The Rockdale Municipality First World War Honour Roll lists a ‘Goodman, J’, whereas the roll for
Bexley Municipality’s enlistees, a ‘Goodman, J V’, as does the Kogarah Photo Honour Roll. One
research source utilised – The AIF Project – identified ‘Goodman, J’ as Jordan, service number
1197, of Arncliffe; ‘Goodman, J V’ is John Victor, service number 3074 (West Kogarah).
When it came to the photo it should have been (by association) with John Victor, however, as
can occur, it was assigned to the other ‘Goodman’.
This mistake (as it would turn out to be) occurred while compiling large data volumes into a
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet database. Come August 2014 and an alternate format, Google
Sites, a free website creator application, came under consideration.
In December, ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ appeared in a St George and Sutherland Shire Leader
article announcing a user-friendly, non-commercial, commemorative-reference website of
approximately 2600 ‘names’, local First World War Honour Roll entries (where relevant), with
numerous links – Australian War Memorial Collections (photos, Red Cross files, military
decoration citations, memorabilia); The AIF Project service summaries; images sourced from
State Library of New South Wales, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Mail, All Australia
Memorial (NSW edition), Australia’s Fighting Sons of Empire, St George Call, Rockdale and
Kogarah First World War Photographic Honour Rolls; items loaned by community individuals.
Not long after the website ‘launch’, an email from David Deasey pointed out the error with the
photo stated to be that of Jordan Goodman, and an offer of one of far superior quality to that
of Kogarah Honour Roll which was duly reassigned to the correct ‘Goodman’ (John Victor).
David also queried why the Kerr family had not been included (considering there were other
‘names’ from Kogarah). The explanation – while certain areas of that suburb are clearly not
within the City of Rockdale boundary, some perhaps are (titled ‘Kogarah-Rockdale (unclear)’ in
the website column ‘Rockdale Connection’, based on Kogarah Library data), whereas some
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were Kogarah-local residents yet find their name on a City of Rockdale-area Honour Roll and
are therefore included (for example, Percy William Eames). Such is the liberty of inclusion
parameters when it is a solo project: as for the Kerr brothers (Arthur, Robert, and William) the
‘connection’ of being brothers-in-law to John Victor Goodman was reason enough.
Updateable, that’s one inherent website characteristic for, as per the ‘Goodman photo’, errors
occur – The AIF Project (University of New South Wales / Australia Defence Force Academy)
(who provided copyright agreement to establish links), as good a reference it is, is not infallible
(as the creators readily admit): example, entries noted ‘Rockdale’ were (upon investigation of
original documentation) ‘Rochdale’ England; and then there’s a document wherein Rockdale
Municipal Honour Roll ‘names’ note respective service numbers, with (for example) ‘Fillingham,
C.O.’ provided 3301, which the All Australia Memorial (NSW edition) (and National Archives of
Australia) revealed to be not so – he, Charles Joseph Orton, was Royal Australian Navy, 2672.
Such occurrences are realities of human nature and support the ‘advantage’ inference that
precedes them for, whereas hardcopy cannot be altered in situ, websites can, providing ability
to correct a format accessible ‘24/7’ to potential mass audiences – and, should the unthinkable
occur and the website not be available (or any data link within ‘broken’), backup is via the
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet (uploaded to the site whenever content changes).
And so to this project’s concept of ‘centralization of data’.
As stated in the ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ website page ‘Sources’ the aim was/is to centralize
public domain information related to enlistees identified with the local government area known
as the ‘City of Rockdale’ (some of whom were recorded on a local church or RSL honour roll,
some of whom were not), providing a platform for remembrance, reference, and research if so
desired. The ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ administrator ‘owns’ only the concept and design, not
the content – data ‘owners’ are websites of University of New South Wales (The AIF Project),
Australian War Memorial, National Archives of Australia, Discovering Our Anzacs, State Library
of New South Wales ‘Crowne Studio portraits’, Commonwealth War Graves Commission,
National Library of Australia digitised newspapers (Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au)), Google
News Archive, The Harrower Collection, WW1 Nurses, Boer War Memorial, Barry Ennever
Genealogy, University of Wollongong, Australia Light Horse Studies Centre, Australians in the
Boer War Oz-Boer War database, the Hill End (NSW) related publication Golden Diggers (Helen
Wood and Lorraine Purcell), and a Boer War nominal roll Soldiers of the Queen (Dr Robin
McLachlan), all of whom are duly noted (both in the naming of links to the relevant data, and
the website ‘Sources’ page) as per these entities response to copyright queries.
The ‘data centralization’ concept arose from volunteering time to Rockdale Library (early 2014)
in sourcing Rockdale City-local First World War memorabilia (primarily local church and RSL
Honour Rolls and community individuals). After creating the ‘names’ list from these, a copy of a
1993 newspaper held by Ramsgate RSL brought The AIF Project to first notice – not that it was
at that time a website, rather the form of a newspaper insert, listing some 15,000 First World
War enlistees (the significance of being produced in 1993 was not apparent).
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As indicated above, and admitted to by itself, The AIF Project is not a foolproof nor totally
comprehensive list of all Australia’s First World War service personnel – without it however,
‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ would be nowhere near as almost comprehensive as it strives to be.
It is, however, as accurate a website can be, with all ‘names’ (totalling over 3000 as at July
2015) checked against original documentation, these being digitised enlistment (attestation)
forms and embarkation address detail, the former available at National Archives of Australia,
the latter, Australian War Memorial. As a result, most (not all) ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ entries
have a link to the service personnel’s war service summary created by The AIF Project – those
that particular website does not contain are linked to National Archives of Australia.
Soon enough the idea generated of incorporating photos-in-service (sourced from, and linked
to, the Australian War Memorial Collections, the Sydney Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, The
St George Call, State Library of NSW Crowne Studio Portraits, those lent by individuals, and of
course local Honour Roll images); a scouring of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
website in attempting to identify hitherto ‘unresolved’ names (which for some was successful
via residence detail of next-of-kin) gave rise to detailing killed-in-action dates and likely
whereabouts along with relevant Red Cross files (held by the Australian War Memorial); due
remembrance was felt to be incomplete without Military Award citations and the like, again
linked to the War Memorial; and then, months after the ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ launch via a
December 2014 St George and Sutherland Shire Leader article, each of the (at that date 2600 or
so ‘names’) was searched through Trove (National Library of Australia digitised newspaper site)
for any mention in media of the day, with links attached to the relevant ‘name’ where found.
The (almost) end result? A single reference point potentially linking to any number of external
website sources and/or hardcoded information deemed relevant – examples: AN&MEF service
(Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force of September (and later on in the war) 1914,
and precursor to the AIF); National Archives of Australia record series MT 1486/1 (applications
to enlist denied as physically unfit or suitable for service in Australia); name clarification (such
as the Frasa brothers, spelt ‘Fraza’ in a photo but there being no such name in National Archives
of Australia service records); and those enlistees of Catholic religion, none of whom are listed
on church honour rolls and only so identified by Father Brendan Quirk of St Joseph’s Rockdale
two weeks prior to Anzac Day 2015 – with a request to label these individuals (in the website)
as of ‘St Mary Mackillop’s Parish Rockdale City’ (what was that about being updateable in situ?)
So why then ‘A’ City of Rockdale and not ‘The’? It’s a matter of implication – ‘The’ usually
confers ‘absolute’, above all others, duly authorised by those so entitled.
This (‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’) website has no affiliation with any project similar. Apart from
an agreement, after email contact, with Rockdale Council to be linked with the ‘Together We
Remember’ webpage, the work was not commissioned nor endorsed by Council. So while ‘City
of Rockdale’ forms part of this document title (and is utilised within the website for defining
suburbs the ‘City’ encompasses) the project does not declare or imply to be the authoritative
representation of the geographical area; as to ‘absolute’, this suggests both without error (such
a website is always open to adjustment or rectification on notification – referenced in the
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‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ ‘Sources’ page), and complete which (if early May 2015 was a guide)
it isn’t.
At time of writing there remain approximately 60 ‘unresolved’ local honour roll names – some
months earlier this totalled 80 or so. For no other reason than to give presence to these men
(or women), the St George Call (news of the day, digitised, made available through Trove during
December 2014 – after the initial launch) was interrogated again, on this occasion, the casualty
lists. During the First World War total casualty lists were periodically posted in the mainstream
newspapers. The St George Call reproduced these (in part) whenever a local resident’s name
appeared – but even then, considering potential emotion rendered a relative finding a loved
one’s name as ‘wounded’ (or worse), there were errors at the time in transposing this data.
Examples searching on ‘Rockdale’ – ‘Cameron, A. D.’ (Rochdale Station, Menindie); ‘Miller, A.E.’
(‘Rockvale’, North Sydney); ‘Alchin, W.E.’ (‘Rockdale’, Gunning); and ‘White, William Aubrey’
(‘Rockdale’, Bethungra): and then there was ‘Gowen, R’ who was established to be Owen,
Robert George, and ‘Conroy, P.R.’ who was Conroy, F.B.
Interesting too was the end result – approximately 40 new ‘names’, none of whom were listed
on any local honour roll (with the other twenty of the 60 mentioned above resolved during the
same timeframe, eventually, by other means).
Some other ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ website statistics – as of July 2015 there are slightly
more than 3200 ‘names’ listed. ‘Selection criteria’ allows for an ‘enlistee’ to be a City of
Rockdale resident before, during, or after the war (via attestation and/or embarkation files, or
other identifiable means – for example a document in a National Archive of Australia service
record, or living relative such as Coralie Lewin and the Faerber brothers), and/or connection by
way of Honour Roll (example, George Norman Fifield, The AIF Project stating him to be of West
Wyalong while also known to the Rockdale Municipal Honour Roll), or family connection (the
five Sowter boys – Charles Selwyn and Arthur Roy ‘local’, with three brothers interstate).
Such inclusion reasoning is profiled under the website ‘Rockdale Connection’ column – and if, at
any future date, a similar-type project wishes to claim an entry as their own they are more than
welcome, on condition that the ‘name’ is not returned to anonymity.
Local Honour Rolls visited (there may be more) – Rockdale, Bexley, Arncliffe Municipality;
Bexley Presbyterian, Uniting, Anglican Church; Brighton-Le-Sands Uniting, Rockdale Uniting
(incorporating Rockdale and West Botany Street Methodist), Ramsgate Community, Sans Souci
St Andrew’s Anglican Church; and Sandringham (now Sans Souci) Public School – listings total
approximately 1700 names (some of whom are recorded in more than one place); therefore,
The AIF Project (predominantly) and miscellaneous sources account for 1500 or so enlistees
who otherwise would have remained anonymous.
‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ contains links to 990 photos; approximately 600 personnel are noted
as killed-in-action (per The AIF Project or Commonwealth War Graves Commission); over 330
Red Cross files are linked to Australian War Memorial as are 130 Military Award citations
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(including 3 Victoria Cross, 2 French and 1 Belgium Croix-De-Guerre, and a nursing sister’s Royal
Red Cross 2nd Class Medal); there are 31 First World War enlistees who served in the Boer War
(South Africa 1899-1902), 2 in the China Boxer Uprising (1900-01), and 1 from the Sudan War of
1885 (making him 50 years old in the First World War); there are 17 nurses, 12 Australian Navy
(with 1 French and 2 British), and 5 New Zealand Expeditionary Force; following on from Father
Quirk (St Joseph’s Rockdale), 375 Catholics are so noted; there are 10 ‘Diary’ and 3 ‘Letter’ links,
53 ‘on loan’ items provided by individuals, whilst 34 ‘enlistees’ served with the AN&MEF
(Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force) September 1914 mission to German-controlled
New Guinea, with others who served with this same force later during the war so noted.
Also listed are 28 ‘father and son’ relationships (19 ‘one son’, 7 ‘two sons’, and 2 ‘three sons’; of
these, one father and five sons killed-in-action) and 312 siblings (236 ‘two brothers’, 2 ‘brother
and sister’, 55 ‘three brothers’ and 1 ‘two brothers and sister’, 15 ‘four brothers’, 3 ‘five
brothers’… and 1 family of six brothers; of these, 149 killed.)
If one wished to be pedantic as to ‘Rockdale-connection’, then, of the 3255 website entries
there are 117 ‘by relation ( brother, cousin, uncle)’ and 234 ‘non-combatants’ (see below*),
leaving 2904, of whom 581 died, approximately 1 in 5; by comparison, Australian War Memorial
website statistics state a 1 in 7 attrition rate (416000 enlistees, 60000 killed-in-action).
(*National Archives of Australia contains a series titled ‘MT 1486/1’, the attestation form upon
enlistment noted as ‘unfit for service’ or to serve in Australia (not so clearly stated) for (mostly)
medical reasons. That these 234 ‘non-combatants’ did not serve overseas is not considered to
be reason to exclude – some of the records indicate the form was to be retained, perhaps as
proof against accusations of conscientious objection (or worse, cowardice.) Another conclusion
to be drawn (of which only a small percentage are digitised) challenges the notion that once
casualty numbers mounted almost anyone was accepted, a perhaps popular belief these days
that may not be entirely accurate.)
But what’s a website unless it is viewed? Google Analytics allows for setting parameters to
assess usage – ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ statistics commenced 8 March 2015 and, while
interest peaked around Anzac Day, numbers to end June totalled approximately 440 Australiabased (including the 120 after April 25) with a further 30 in the first weeks of July.
These numbers demonstrate the power of positive wording in order to draw attention, such as
‘First World War’, ‘commemoration’, ‘ANZAC 2015’, and ‘Australia Remembers’.
Obviously, once there is user realisation that content is specific to ‘the local government area
known as City of Rockdale’ there is no control over level of participation (if any) – that’s where
including an email address proved invaluable in evaluating the intended effectiveness:
John Casey (relative of Charles Henry Lester) – “I would like to see the website when it is
available. Thank you for the offer and all your hard work on this project.” (14 November 2014)
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Joy Dean (relative of Arthur Charles Hawkins and Cecil Augustine Dean) – “Hi – thank you for
your email. I would love you to send me the link to your website. You must have done an
enormous amount of research to get to this point so I am extremely interested.” (16
November)
These just two of the approximately twenty individuals (who had offered material of relatives
who had served) who were chosen as initial recipients of the website (Google Sites allows for
selective publishing prior to global public), sentiments that, while appreciated, didn’t (yet)
substantiate the project worth – that was, until:
Janice Jarrett (relative of Robert Edward Rigby, and after having identified a photo of him in the
Sydney Mail) – “That’s definitely him! No doubt at all. His name was Robert Edward Rigby and
the Dulwich Hill reference may be because the boundaries of St Peters and Dulwich Hill were
very close or overlapped at the time (I haven’t looked yet at any council boundaries for that
time) or I guess it’s possible that his family moved house whilst he was away at the war. Either
way that photo is definitely him. You are wonderful finding out all that information – I am
absolutely delighted! And can’t thank you enough!” (24 November)
And then, when Brighton-Le-Sands RSL member Gary Pearson emailed an invitation to the
Remembrance Day meeting of the Western Front Association, it seemed opportune to forward
the website to the Australia Branch Chairman (Lt-Col Paul Simadas) “for the interest of others”,
who could not have been more embracing: “This is a remarkable piece of research, I am very
impressed with the way you have linked it to other data-bases. This is the type of endeavor that
brings the men to life, and at a local level. So important to remembrance. There is a need to
collate and interpret these diverse sources, as you have done.” (28 November)
And so to the public launch early December, and an email from Ross Bell: “Following the story
in “The Leader” I was delighted to spend some time looking through your information. Well
done! I hope you are proud of the work that you have done. I am sure Meg at the NSW War
Memorial Register would be delighted to have some of this information.”
Megan Reilly, Register of War Memorials in New South Wales – duly got in contact: “Hi; firstly,
congratulations on the work you have done. I note that there may be some memorials you have
listed on your site that are not yet registered with us. These are - WW1 Honour Board of St
Andrew's Anglican Church, Sans Souci (and) Rockdale Uniting Church (Bay St)” (5 December);
(come 14 January these had been registered with War Memorials of New South Wales.)
In the interim others agreed to link ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ – Bexley, Kingsgrove, and
Brighton-Le-Sands RSL (Sub-Branches), St George Historical Society, The Harrower Collection,
the website WorldWarOneLink, Rockdale Library’s ‘Together We Remember’ page: the
Australian War Memorial ‘Pandora’ project could not, despite intentions to do so, due to
firewall restrictions on Google products (an emailed update early May 2015 stated that should
future policy alter, they would revisit), while Ramsgate and Rockdale RSLs did not respond to
email invitations, whereas RSL Virtual War Memorial did: “I have consulted with the Director
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and we have looked at your site. We acknowledge the thought and work linked to your site and
we congratulate you on it. At this stage it is our preference not to link to your site.”
Praise – even in declining – from various quarters, all well and good: the real appreciation of
course extends to the City of Rockdale men and women listed in ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ and,
while elevating a few from the many to provide an idea of content is not the overall objective,
‘extracts’ follow (to promote incentive to visit the website) – but beforehand, a note.
Given the site structure (an embedded Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet) there is no search facility,
a design (while limiting to scrolling through name listings) that has not provided usage issues; as
there are too many entries to place in one display they are split into 4 groups, available in tags
‘A to D’, ‘E to L’, ‘M to R’, and ‘S to Z’.
(There is interconnectivity linking ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ to a name-only searchable website
https://sites.google.com/site/ww1acityofrockdalehonourroll (known as ‘WW1 City of Rockdale
Honour Roll’).)
Selected ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ and their stories
William Henry Nicholls, service number 2369, killed in action May 7 1918 – a linked Sydney
Morning Herald article a few weeks later: “Trooper William H Nicholls was one of the ‘Coo-ees’
and marched from Gilgandra to Sydney, where he became attached to the Light Horse. He was
the adopted son, and nephew, of Mr. and Mrs. J Bradbury of Rocky Point-road, Sans Souci. A
cousin, A. C. L. Pybus, was killed at Flerbiax in July, 1916.”
John William Lock, service number 909, killed in action August 11 1918 – details from Roll of
Honour circular (The AIF Project): “He was 16 ½ years when he enlisted.”
Jessie Herbert Taylor, service number 681, died of wounds Gallipoli December 15 1915 – a
linked Sydney Mail photo caption reads “a native of Birmingham England, served in the South
African war, his brother a crew member of submarine E11 which made the memorable dash
through the Dardanelles.” This, ‘E11’, was not a misprint (for the Australian vessel AE2) – it was
of the Royal Navy, the submarine class from which the Australian Navy was provided two (AE1
and the above-mentioned), with investigation regarding Jessie’s brother on-going.
From May 2015 ‘resolved’:- Ethelbert Ambrook Southee (E A Southee-Rockdale Municipal Roll),
discovered with an internet search – a Rhodes Scholar, served with Royal Army Service Corps, is
listed in Australian Dictionary Biography, and has a Cootamundra (NSW) public school named
for him. All have links in the website; and Desire Gaston Marie Balen (D Balen-Bexley Municipal
Honour Roll), found in National Archives of Australia searching on ’D Balen’ with no limiting
parameters. Number 27 of many listings, his 1928 Naturalisation Certificate gave the first hint
of identification, confirmed by a Sydney Morning Herald marriage notice (St Joseph’s Rockdale).
‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ summarizes National Archives to ‘born France, arrived Australia
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1910, married Rockdale 1912, absent 1915 as he rejoined French Marine for war service’, with a
link to Grand Memorial (National Archives France) supporting this (albeit in French).
Book-ending the website is ABBEY, Edward Alphonsus and YULE, Alexander Sydney, the latter
schooled at Erskineville Public, religion Church of England, a shop assistant, single, resident of
Webbers Road, West Kogarah on enlistment, First Battalion, D Company: The Sydney Morning
Herald’s July 1915 “Men Of The Dardanelles” column reports him as “wounded, born 23 years
ago, and employee at Smith and Lane, printers, Bridge Street City” – come August 1916, there’s
a report far less favourable… “YULE – Killed in action France, July 22, 1916, “One of the best
that God could send. He lived as he died – honourably.” Inserted by loving mate, S. Whitpaine.”
They – Edward Abbey (connection, married Rockdale 1925, and linked to a Goulburn Post 1918
article correcting one earlier which had him also killed-in-action), and Alexander Yule – would,
in early 1914, have held hope for the future: likewise twenty-nine-year old James Mackerras
McInnes, noted by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as resident of Arncliffe yet
hitherto unknown for he is not listed on any local honour roll nor by The AIF Project as of that
suburb. Having previous military service in the Light Horse, James enlisted one month after war
was declared only to contract pneumonia during final preparations on Lemnos Island. With his
demise on April 15, 1915 (listed in the website ‘At Sea’ as per The AIF Project data) his is the
earliest casualty detail, linked to The Sydney Morning Herald reporting of “An Australian’s
Death” announced “by the Defence Department”.
Hope for the future then: – nineteen names inscribed on a roll of honour, “those connected
with the Methodist Church, Arncliffe”, February 1916. As per the St George Call, they had gone
“to fight for King and Country, and the upholding of righteous principles” and, after everything
the three Mitchell brothers – Arthur Bolingbroke, George Frederick, and William – had endured,
so it was, all surviving. As to the fate of the other sixteen ‘names’ one could scroll the website
for the entry ‘Arncliffe Methodist Church Honour Roll (Pindari Room – Rockdale Town Hall)’.
Hope for the future: – what might have Captain Richard Victor Morse of Rockdale envisaged?
An engineer “in the New South Wales Tramways Department” (The Sydney Morning Herald of
May 1919 link), his unit the Mining Corps Headquarters, could he have foreseen a Mention in
Despatches, a Distinguished Service Order, and promotion to Major? Might he have foretold of
his name in the media after the war in “Science In War – Battles Underground, a chat with
Lieutenant-Colonel (Professor) David, Chief Geologist to the British armies on the Western
Front”, during which is mentioned “the firing of the 19 immense guns at Messines arranged
almost entirely by Major R. V. Morse, with machinery brought with him from Sydney.”
Hope for a son’s future: – Alderman G. G. Olds of Rockdale would have held it for Norman upon
his leaving Sydney in June 1915; he would have held pride a year later for the “conspicuous
bravery and devotion to duty under fire (Pozieres)”and Military Medal resultant; no doubt
however his despair with Norman’s picture in the St George Call, August 1917, “For King and
Country, served in Gallipoli, served in charge at Mouquet Farm, led his platoon into action at
Pozieres, where he was wounded – killed in action in France, March 27, 1917.”
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Hope for his… bugle, perhaps? At eighteen, one surely can’t view himself future President of
the Musician’s Union (at twenty-two), nor the four deadly years in the interim – and Thomas
Rangi Ricketts (of May Cottage, Highgate Street) could not possibly have envisaged that same
bugle mounted, pride of place, donated by his widow, years later in Bexley RSL.
Hope for their… remembrance, perhaps? Gallipoli veteran Thomas Henry Rockstroh might have
‘turned in his grave’ as the saying goes, had he known of his Anzac Commemorative Medallion,
issued by the Australian Prime Minister in 1967, for sale (Australian Militaria Sales website) at
$550; similarly, what might Herbert Edgar Skidmore have thought, with his Victory and Military
Medal (awarded for ‘admirable courage and great devotion to duty under shell fire’) ending up
as Lot 4245 and sold for almost $3000 (Noble Numismatics website)?
Hope for… perhaps not having to fire a shot? August 1918 – William Septimus Seymour, 18 and
single, “enlisted during the week” as reported in the St George Call. Whether he knew it or not,
the end of the war was nigh with the enemy in retreat: indeed their Generals would call August
8 the ‘black day of the German Army’. Nonetheless William embarked September 4, returned
home the following August and, four years later, appeared again in the news, on this occasion
with his “application for registration as a milk vendor granted.”
Hope held in locating news items when the surname is ‘Thompson’ or ‘Smith’: – March 1917,
the St George Call records “a happy time spent at the Band Hall Rockdale, with Gunner Harry
Smith [likely Harry Thomas Smith, regimental number 3616, age 18, single] entertained in right
royal style prior to his departure for the front. Mr W. R. Bagnall presented the soldier with a
wristlet watch, money belt, pocket wallet, fountain pen, and numerous other gifts”; St George
Call, July 1917: “A Local Hero. Mr & Mrs J. Thompson have been notified their son, Pte. Spencer
Horace Thompson, has been decorated the Military Medal, for conspicuous service in France”.
Hope for the normality of home: – “Baseballers At The Front. Private H [Harold] Tuffy, writing to
Mr Krinks, Carlton, says: “While out of the lines in France we got a baseball kit through from the
Red Cross. [We] got a team together to play the Canadians, but our nine got knocked out when
we went into Ypres. Tom East, Billy Pearson, two others and myself were wounded, three of the
others were killed, leaving one batter.” (February 1918, St George Call).
Hope for “a complete recovery” (St George Call, April 1920): – “Mr M. W. Wyatt, who has lately
been acting as Teller in the Government Savings Bank, Kogarah, has been transferred to
Temora, on account of ill health. A popular and obliging officer at all times, we sincerely trust
the change of scene may be beneficial. Mr Wyatt [Montague William Wyatt, age 22, single on
enlistment November 1916] was one of the boys to represent us at the Front.”
Hope for their collective future: – in May 1914 the St George Call reported seventeen-year-old
Percy Norman Eldridge, Arncliffe Methodist Y.M. Institute Cricket Club Secretary, in his annual
report address, displaying “optimism and grit of the right kind. This, our first season, started
with a membership of fifteen members. The behaviour, both on the field of play and at club
meetings has been of the highest, and shows a good incentive for the future of cricket in
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connection with our Institute. [In the St George Cricket Association C Grade, they played 13,
won 1, and lost 12.] This seems an exceptionally bad showing, it will be hoped members will not
be discouraged but be inspired to do better next season.”
How Percy and others fared next summer is unknown – what is clear, is that between Percy’s
words (announcing the club’s best performers) and the first bail on stump late 1914, Australia
went to a war which absorbed Percy’s elder brother Alfred James the following August and
Percy in November two years later: both returned in 1919 while 1914’s best batsman, ‘R. N.
Russell’ (most likely Reginald Ernest), enlisted around the same date as Alfred (Eldridge) and
returned mid-1919, while the Institute’s best bowler, ‘E. Wolfenden’ (likely Ernest Leslie) signed
up October 1916 and returned home three years later.
All four youthful cricketers would be remembered on at least one Rockdale-local WW1 Honour
Roll for – in place of chasing leather wacked by willow – service to King and Country, as would
Henry Roy Eldridge (relationship to Percy and Alfred unknown), also young (twenty-one), but
unlike them destined to be recorded in a (linked) Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and
Missing Enquiry Bureau file witnessed by Private Walker who recalled Henry as ‘buried in the
first line of German trenches after the explosion of a shell about July 25 at Pozieres. When he
was dug out he was dead. I saw his body.’
Also listed on Rockdale-local WW1 Honour Rolls are the Fillingham brothers, all remembered
on the Rockdale Municipal Honour Roll, three on the Rockdale Methodist Church Roll, one of
these also located (as is another brother, his only local entry) on West Botany Street Methodist
Church; all feature in a post-war publication All Australia Memorial-NSW Edition, the biography
beginning with parents ‘May and the late J. O. Fillingham, Cameron St, Rockdale’ and ‘sons
enlisted: Charles Orton, on board S.S. “Sydney”, War Service: High Sea; George R. P. No. 4583,
War Service: France (made the supreme sacrifice at Messines, June 7, 1917); Harold W. No. 531,
War Service: Egypt, Gallipoli, France, with unit at cessation of hostilities, Sgt Fillingham was
awarded Military Medal; Hubert C. Pte. 60216, War Service: arrived England a day or two after
signing of Armistice’ – a mixed bag of fortune, none more perhaps than the lone sailor amongst
three soldiers, Charles Joseph Orton Fillingham, who, in a newspaper article of 1923, “had
taken ill while H.M.A.S. Sydney was at Port Arthur and had died suddenly.” It was February 22
and Charles, “the deceased”, thirty-two years of age, would “be buried with naval honours”
with expectations that “about 400 men of the fleet will attend.”
Somewhat older than Charles Fillingham was Edward Herbert Ernest Gawthorpe (forty-three), a
St George District Amateur Rugby Football Club member remembered in its “tenth annual
report adopted at the annual general meeting” of May 1916, the St George Call reporting the
motion of “desire to place on record our deep regret” for those killed (Ernest and three others)
“whilst fighting for King and Country” with “deepest sympathy tendered to their relatives.”
Being a full two decades younger than Edward Gawthorpe, “big things were predicted” for
Arncliffe’s Clifford Robert Lang Halloran, “special correspondent” for the “Sun” who, as per an
October 1915 St George Call column, “would undoubtedly have [had] a brilliant career as his
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 11 of 25
articles, both spirited and cleverly written, created widespread attention” but for having “gone
over the Great Divide” after “a splinter of shrapnel shattered the fond hopes centred in him by
many” – no doubt most ‘shattered’ were his parents along with brother ‘Mick’, also known as
nineteen-year-old Henry Bryant Mowbray Halloran who enlisted a month prior the devastating
news, and who would not see parents or home again for four years.
Not so fortunate (as ‘Mick’ Halloran) the Hathaway brothers of Bexley, both – Frederick and
then George – killed in France within a month of each other in 1918, a few months before war
ended, and remembered by brother Harry a year later “in loving memory of Frederick Bob
Hathaway, died of wounds France, July 6, 1918, also George, died of wounds, August 22, 1918”.
Of either – Frederick and George Hathaway – little else is known, but this is more than what is
recorded of Robert Roy Heuston of West Kogarah (identified by The AIF Project) but on no local
honour roll, with no National Archives Australia record, his only reference in the St George Call
a few years after the war…“at a small meeting at Council Chambers a committee was brought
into being, named the “Citizens Committee”, its object to control the sports and social side of
training Senior Cadets of 45BA (Kogarah). Mayor Ald. W. H. Matthews was elected President
and Lieut R. R. Heuston publicity secretary”.
Similar to R. R. Heuston (as for limited information), Edward Basil Claude Macryannis (Bexley
Anglican Church: Macryannis, E. B.), but for a 1917 St George Call paragraph:-“Mrs. Macryannis,
60 Railway Parade, Kogarah, and late of Hill End, has been informed that her eldest son, Private
Edward Macryannis, 18, late of Hereford House, has been killed in France.” – or so it was for
Edward’s ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ entry until an email from Lorraine Purcell who, with Helen
Wood, authored Golden Diggers, a book profiling the enlistees from Hill End (NSW), one of
whom is Edward Macryannis (and cousin John Joseph). With Lorraine’s permission, their stories
were copied, uploaded to the internet as word documents, linked within the spreadsheet, and
will appear in the website in due course.
And, similarly (as far as remaining unknown but for a Commonwealth War Graves Commission
website appearance as being of ‘Bexley’), the Maltby brothers, Frank (a dairy farmer, 19 on
enlistment and forever so, no known grave, commemorated Lone Pine Memorial (panel 62),
Gallipoli, as per The AIF Project), and George (18 on enlistment one year after Frank’s death, he
too forever 19, no known grave, again, as per The AIF Project), both just two of almost 11,000
Australians killed in France with no known final resting place.
More fortunate the Mathews boys of Brighton-Le-Sands, neither however on a local honour
roll, The AIF Project identifying their connection as Gordon Street residents, with Arthur James
(29, single, and carpenter by trade on enlistment) serving four years, and younger brother by
six years, Herbert George (single, a correspondence clerk), and awarded the Military Cross for
‘conspicuous gallantry when driving the enemy out of the trenches. Though once wounded and
twice buried by shells, he insisted on remaining at his post.’
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Equally so – in terms of fortune in surviving – but heralded within a most unexpected website
(NSW Central District Ambulance Service Corps), ‘Transport Sergeant Duncan Angus McDonald’,
he too unearthed by The AIF Project, occupation civil ambulance, rank sergeant (transport), unit
(Fifth Field Ambulance, C Section), with his address ‘Arncliffe’ the connection; and, equally so
(surviving yet anonymous but for Australian Nurses in World War 1 website), Thora Augusta
McLennan (connection, died Rockdale 1963) born 1883 Dimboola NSW, staff nurse, aged 32 on
enlistment, served in Salonika until malaria terminated her as ‘unfit’ tending the wounded and
dying.
Listed on not one but two local honour rolls – but curiously not AIF – Captain Herbert Kingsley
Meek (British Army, Fourteenth Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, killed September 15 1916,
Commonwealth War Graves Commission website), brother of Richard Stanley (Bay St, Rockdale,
single, 31, died of wounds at sea 29 April 1915, The AIF Project), sons of Rockdale Methodist
Minister, Reverend B. J. Meek – from a St George Call article noting a third brother/son,
“Chaplain Meek, at present [May 1915] in Flanders”… and of whom nothing more is able to be
determined (although he, as brother Herbert, was likely British Army).
Also listed on a local honour roll (Rockdale Municipality, surname misspelt with two ‘L’s), not
far below the Meeks, is Oscar Adolf Mendelsohn, one of a handful of ‘enlistees’ also with an
Australian Dictionary of Biography (Australian National University) link. Having a middle and
surname suggestive of German heritage, this website confirms it, Oscar the ‘sixth child of a
storekeeper from Berlin’, adding that he was a two world war veteran and of multiple talents
including chemist, teacher, food scientist, Commonwealth and State Government overseas
representative, farmer, author, composer and song publisher (under the name ‘Milsen’),
founding President of the Australian Association of Consulting Chemists, and awarded the
Order of the British Empire three years before his death in 1978, aged 82.
Oscar also sought election for Parliament: so too Leslie James Albert Parr (no local honour roll
listing however – courtesy Parliament of New South Wales website – of Rockdale, a member of
the NSW Legislative Assembly, Liberal Party member Burwood 1951-56, medical practitioner
(specialist rheumatologist) and, like Oscar Mendelsohn, a two war veteran).
And, while regimental service number 1 does not indicate Charles Albert Holswich (Hurstville,
connected by his Rockdale Uniting Church’s Rockdale Methodist WW1 Honour Roll listing) was
‘first to enlist’, he nonetheless signed up November 1914 at age 28, only to return a year later
(presumably injured and beyond a return to battle) and appear on the wrong side of fortune
three years after in The Sydney Morning Herald article “Help For Unlucky Soldier –in order to
recompense Mr C. A. Holswich, the returned soldier who lost the whole of his cattle recently
owing to their being mysteriously poisoned, a fund has been opened which, it is hoped, will
reach £300. Contributions may be forwarded to Alderman Jackson or Walker at the Town Hall.”
As one enters Bexley RSL Club, two hundred or so Municipality of Bexley WW1 Honour Roll
‘names’ hover, commencing with the ‘S’ listings (the search continues for the ‘T’ to ‘Z’ section),
ending with ALDRIDGE, H. G., “Pte. H. G. Aldridge, N.S.W. – Wounded” from a Sydney Mail
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 13 of 25
photo that hints at regimental service number 589’s war’s end at Gallipoli: two years later, the
same Harry Gwydir Aldridge, now 32 and “a returned soldier” as per the St George Call “had
been worried about a wound in his leg”, so much that on “Sunday morning, Mrs Aldridge was in
the kitchen when she heard the report of a firearm. Rushing into the bedroom, she found her
husband with a revolver in his right hand, bleeding from a wound in the chest.”
Four months later Mrs Aldridge was again in the news – “Under the auspices of the Carlton and
West Kogarah Branch of the Voluntary Workers Association”, the St George Call reports of them
“doing their duty in providing a home, situated in Grey Street for the dependants of one who
had fallen. Expressing the desire that the Almighty would bestow blessings on the home, the
grounds decorated with wattle, Alderman T. J. Carr presented the key [following] a procession
[that had] left Carlton Station [with] a motor car decorated with the battalion colours of the
deceased soldier, containing his three children, drawn by the Boy Scouts with the good old
Union Jack at the fore.”
Around the same date (again in the St George Call), and under the auspices of the Lord Mayor
and Lady Mayoress of Sydney, a “second cottage erected by the Bexley Voluntary Workers
[was] handed over to Corporal Brenneke who, after seeing service on the hills of Gallipoli, was
badly injured by shell shock in France”. The ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ website AIF Project link
provides more detail regarding Charles Frederick Brenneke:- married, twenty-three, sanitary
engineer, admitted to Second Australian Casualty Clearing Station, Ismailia, 16 February 1916
(influenza), admitted to Second Divisional Rest Station (France) 1 July 1917 (fractured right ribs;
accidental), from there to Eighth Casualty Clearing Station then to Eighth Stationary Hospital,
Wimereux, then to Chatham Military Hospital (England)… all within four days which, while not
overly helpful to his ribs, can’t have benefited his shell-shock either.
But perhaps the saddest of all local Voluntary Workers Association contributions (by way of
erecting cottages for the war-affected) is a few September 1916 St George Call paragraphs
noting the third by Kogarah Branch located in “the Boulevarde, Sans Souci” for “Mrs. F. Hunter,
a widow who, having lost two of her sons, made a further sacrifice by parting with the third,
now in France”, the Hunter boys being Frederick Emerton (26), Maurice James Emereton (22),
and William Emerton (21).
Youthful too were the West Kogarah Jeffries brothers – Thomas Frederick (21), Harry (19), and
Peter Reuben (18). Unlike Mrs Hunter, their parents would see all return home, their names
listed in Bexley Uniting (Methodist) Church and Bexley RSL’s Bexley Municipality Honour Roll
which, in their vicinity, has two ‘Glenday’ surnames: initial ’J’, resolved by The AIF Project, is
James, regimental service number 2656 (with little known aside his Carlton address at time of
enlistment). The other ‘Glenday’, initials ‘W T’, was not unveiled by National Archives Australia
data and remained unresolved until a Commonwealth War Graves Commission website record
provided the connection: - William Thomas, British Army, First Gordon Highlanders, service
number 9416, killed in action France March 1916, with due notification his mother at Carlton
NSW Australia (next-of-kin information identical with AIF soldier, and brother, James).
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Unlike the Bexley RSL Honour Roll, that hanging in St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Sans Souci, has
no distinction as to which war the eighty-odd ‘names’ belong – only detail on the man behind
the ‘name’ atop all others provides a clue. While, at forty years of age, Malcolm St. John Lamb
was comparatively old when he enlisted in the AIF within three weeks of the First World War
commencing, he already ‘history’ when it came to what was required, as the St George Call of
September 1915 illustrated…“we didn’t know him as Major. We knew him as Mr. Lamb, the
school teacher. We knew he’d been through the Boer War, and we knew he’d been a Captain of
soldiers in some way or another. But we didn’t know, until he’d been to and gone from Gaba
Tepe (with an arm in a sling) that our friend was a hero. It may be mentioned that Major Lamb
has been mentioned in despatches for gallantry, and is set for promotion on his return to Cairo.
He wouldn’t tell this. But we know it. He spent a few minutes at the “Call” office and his
answers to questions “How do you feel after the experience?”, (which had to be dragged out of
him) began with “Oh, with the exception of a nerve shake and partial loss of use of the ‘right
wing’- tip top.”
A graphic account continues of that ‘experience’ (as the St George Call describes Gallipoli) – and
whether the modest Major from Sandringham knew of the Lamond brothers, all killed in action
following April 25, 1915, is unknown: what is, is that all three are remembered (as is the Major),
with Alexander, David, and Sidney on Rockdale and Bexley Municipal Honour Rolls.
Two ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ entries below Harry Aldridge (who killed himself two years after
returning home wounded) is George Alexander Aldworth, service number 3001, a Rockdale
Municipal Honour Roll entry (initials curiously ‘G G’), his death at Pozieres (France) July 26, 1916
highlighted in red. Another website entry, AIF Project (UNSW / ADFA), reveals a detailed service
summary:- Church of England, joiner by occupation, a ‘Ballamona’, Cameron Street, Rockdale,
resident, 33 on embarkation, December 1915, having enlisted during August. George’s rank is
Private, his unit the 56th Battalion – and his war lasted a month less than a year. In the interim,
and again courtesy of the St George Call, were two of George’s letters home:(May, 1916) “A railway line, a canal, a narrow oasis, all running eastward. Arab dhows, tall in
the mast, passing with slow gracefulness. Squares of freshly turned earth, breaking up the
green, such wonderful green too, framed in yellow desert sand. A square walled in garden of
God, where the yew-tree and cypress mingle their sombre hues with those of the native palms,
shading the graves of Britain’s heroes. Such is Tel-el-Kebir today. The addition of a few
Australian adjectives to the native vocabulary will probably be all that the future tourist will
have to remind him that the Kangaroos have passed this way. ‘Tis Sunday morning, a lovely day
– a Sydney summers day, in fact. The heat is vibrating above the sand and pebble patches. We
rest awhile upon an embankment, and from our position trace the rough outline of trench, gunpit and mound. We go thoughtfully away. A chill, chill wind has started to blow along the
desert, the glare is slowly softening into grey. The sands will lose their flatness, and the desert
will roll away into the night, a stretch of shadowy hill and dale, silent, mysterious.”
Forward to September and, again the St George Call: - “Private George Aldworth, in journeying
through France on his way to the front, gives the following description of delightful country” in
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 15 of 25
a column headed (as did May) “From The Front”. On this occasion, in the form of the very next
sentence, an editorial note reveals a grim reality – “we regret to announce that since sending
this letter, Pte. Aldworth has been killed in action, and is now at rest in the country of which he
so favourably writes: - “Thy cornfields green, and sunny vines. O pleasant land of France. We
repeated the lines automatically in the old schoolroom, in the old days. They meant nothing to
us then. It is otherwise now. We have had many experiences, and have seen much since the day
we left the sunny home shores to aid the motherland.”
George’s accounts are both captivating and dismal for the loss of one so capable of eyeing
beauty in the midst of war.
~~
These days, a century and more on, the general focus is April 25 – the Gallipoli campaign, said
by some to be the ‘birthing of the nation’. Australia went to war much earlier, the same month
and year Great Britain declared hostilities on a Germany occupying territory closer than the
action in far-off Belgium… hence the appearance in ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ of thirty-odd
‘names’ titled ‘AN&MEF’ (Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force despatched to New
Guinea, early September 1914), ‘names’ such as Victor Henry Charles Ainsworth (27 in March
1915 when he enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force and who survived the war, returning
home four years afterwards, almost to the very same day), and John Henry Aldham (24 on later
AIF enlistment, who served a similar number of years, whose ‘Australian War Memorial Red
Cross File’ link states him to have been a prisoner of war ‘with wounded elbow’, and whose
photo and brief service biography, sourced from the All Australia Memorial-NSW edition, is but
a link from viewing).
Of the AN&MEF there’s nothing quite like a first-hand account, courtesy Noel Duncan, one of
many individual contributions to ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’, and his transcript of the service
diary of his relative, Samuel Thomas Baylis.
Noel begins with a summary of Samuel’s war – enlisted AN&MEF August 11 1914, discharged
January 18 1915 after which he joins the AIF September 11, only to be discharged ‘medically
unfit’ the following February, having contracted malaria ‘in the Pacific area’. Undeterred,
Samuel Baylis re-enlists (with the AIF) October 30 1918, only to be ‘demobilised’ two months
later with the war’s end. Extracts from his diary commence with Samuel’s “pleasure of seeing
five Germans flogged” following their assault upon a “Wesleyan missionary at New Ireland”; he
mentions an earthquake that had occurred early November, stating that it would “be of interest
to many that about 600 tons of rock had fallen into the crater opposite Matupi Island”. Much of
the memoir is of monotonous everyday life with regular negative commentary on the food and
boredom when not in battle – however Samuel’s description of Australia’s first actions on
foreign soil (before Gallipoli) under a title “undated” makes for absorbing reading, particularly
his recall of September 11 1914 where “we marched to the Governor’s residence to demand
the surrender of the islands belonging to the Germans in the Pacific.”
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Another AN&MEF soldier who went on to the AIF – with some distinction – is Aldous Arthur
Cooke, Rockdale Municipal Honour Roll, twenty years old (on AIF enlistment) and who served
all the war years, his listing linked not only with his Australian War Memorial photo, but his
Distinguished Conduct and Military Medal citations, and an October 1917 St George Call article
having Aldous “wounded in the thigh and in hospital in London, awarded the Military Medal for
gallantry at Pozieres [France]”.
Given the subject matter there is inevitably reference to the human cost of war and, by mere
alphabetic chance, ‘ALLERDICE, Charles Stewart’ is the first of many enlistee ‘names’ bearing
the word ‘Gallipoli’, his demise noted in the website column ‘Casualty (kia etc – most likely
locale/date)’.
With ‘Hurstville’ his residence (right-most column), a glance left finds ‘St George Rugby Union’,
then ‘Hurstville War Memorial’, then ‘Hurstville Public School’ (local honour rolls that list his
name), followed by the reason to his connection – ‘Rockdale Municipal Honour Roll’: his AIF
Project (UNSW / ADFA) link has him born in Bowral (with Cleveland Street Public another
school), his faith ‘Congregational’, a linotype engineer his trade, single and 20 on embarkation,
weighing 136 pounds and standing a half-inch short of five foot six; he had served as Sergeant
in the Scottish Rifles (a local pre-war militia) and enlisted two weeks into the war, holding the
rank of Lance Corporal in the 4th Battalion, and AIF Project data has him buried in Lone Pine
Cemetary, Gallipoli, Turkey – row M, grave 13. He was twenty-two years old.
As per his Sydney Mail photo/article link (under a heading “Sydney Mail and S. M. Herald Roll of
Honour”) he was “the first of the 48 who have gone to the front from the “Mail” and “Herald”
staffs to be killed in action. Corporal Allerdice was exceedingly popular with his comrades, was
the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Allerdice of Hurstville, was a member of the 4th Battalion which
took part in the historic landings near Gaba Tepe on April 25, and was four months in the
trenches. He was first reported as missing, but several weeks afterwards his parents were
officially informed that he had been killed.” (Another of the ‘48’ (who had ‘gone to the front
from the “Mail” and “Herald”’) was “Gunner Charles Arncliffe Coombes” under the heading
“Killed In Action. He was 24 years of age, was employed on the advertising staff of the S. M.
Herald, and was married to Miss Jessie Reeves shortly before leaving for the front.” (The Sydney
Morning Herald June 1917).)
Ferdinand Beck (of Rockdale) was also written of in glowing terms, The Sydney Morning Herald
having him “the eldest son of Alderman Beck, one of the pioneers of Bega, employed in the
Sydney G.P.O., [taking] part in the heavy fighting that marked the Australasian landing at Gaba
Tepe, shot through both legs, away from the front for seven weeks [before taking] his place
again in the firing line”, noting “his only brother” to also be “at the front”. Ferdinand too did
not leave Gallipoli, killed 15 August – but here, any (website content) similarity with Charles
Allerdice ends. There is no photo, no local honour roll listing, no sporting club affiliation and,
despite his AIF Project link address as Rocky Point Road (Kogarah), his inclusion rests entirely
upon current-day interpretation placing him (most likely) within City of Rockdale boundaries.
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‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ contains many such occurrences – not all personnel names are
inscribed on local honour rolls and, but for University of New South Wales / Australian Defence
Force Academy persistence that resulted in The AIF Project, many would remain anonymous, as
would their family connections: example, the Beer brothers - while Charles Clifford and Harold
Rupert (whom an AIF Project link notes as recipient of the Military Cross) are on the Rockdale
Municipal Honour Roll, brother Wilfred Heard (the only brother killed in action, Passchendaele,
November 1917), is not, his inclusion solely due to The AIF Project identifying him as of Arncliffe
(as was Harold; Charles was Rockdale).
Yet, while The AIF Project proved invaluable, it didn’t provide every serviceman (or woman for
that matter) and, quite often by chance, a local would materialize from many scans through
digitised news clippings:- example, ‘The Claxton Family of Carlton, Sydney, N.S.W.’ in the Sydney
Mail, these being Albert James and Reginald (both on the Municipality Bexley Honour Roll), and
brother Albert Thomas, on no local roll – perhaps for the reason he was ‘UK Forces’, tracked
down through (and linked to) the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website as service
number 9253 of The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment and, of the three, the only killed in
action (at Ypres (Belgium) October 1914.)
~~
Not all ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ linked news items are of war – and not all are favourable.
Four year war veteran (enlisting at age 19) – and with a Military Medal for ‘bringing in six men
who were lying wounded in No Man’s Land’ – hard times (in 1923) nonetheless found Arthur
Cecil Walker of Arncliffe charged with “passing a valueless cheque and obtaining goods and
moneys in change. Constable Hardy said that when he went to the defendant’s residence and
asked where he got the cheque, he replied “I found it in the rubbish at University Park.””
On the receiving end (not of this ‘valueless cheque’ but a “Brutal Assault” as The Sydney
Morning Herald reported, December 1931) was “Cecil William Werry [occupation junior porter,
age 19 on enlistment December 1917], of Napoleon Street Sans Souci, robbed in Ultimo Road
on Friday night. His arms were pinioned by several men, while others went through his pockets
[with] about £3 [stolen].”
And then there’s the case of an ‘enlistee’ (aged 19) whom the St George Call welcomed home a
little over twelve months after having been at Gallipoli “where he saw plenty of fighting, was in
the trenches at Lone Pine, but was invalided home on account of ill health, the sea trip having
worked wonders.” Contemporary (and later) accounts of ‘the trenches at Lone Pine’ depict
battle at its worst – not one year after the ‘welcome home’, the St George Call reports of an
inquest regarding “circumstances under which Dorothy Myra Small met her death, [with] the
Coroner returning a verdict that the deceased died from shock and partial strangulation caused
by [name of the same ‘enlistee’] on vacant land off The Avenue, Rockdale, and found [that he]
did feloniously and maliciously [commit] murder.” Committed for trial at the Central Criminal
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Court, the outcome is unknown – that his alleged victim was eleven years old would have
weighed heavy irrespective of consideration provided his profoundly terrible war experience.
The verdict, on the other hand, was clear for Arthur Ernest Blatch (a ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistee’
for no other connection than identified as ‘next of kin, mother, Unwin Street, Bexley’ by The AIF
Project (regimental number 20553, religion Methodist, single, 21 years old, a wireless operator
who served 3 years overseas), who appeared in Court, August 1920, on a charge of “having
obtained £50 by the false pretence that he had the wood cutting rights of 45 acres of land at
Kurnell, with power to dispose of them” – “the jury, without leaving the box, found the accused
not guilty”; another whose name appears in a news link for not so endearing reasons is Thomas
Vaughan Brocklesby, a Rockdale Municipal Honour Roll listing, whose ‘other details’ from an AIF
Project link perhaps suggest things to come with ‘transferred from military prison, Alexandria,
September 1916, to undergo 1 year’s imprisonment with hard labour in Australia’)… moving on
to March 1922 and under “Quarter Sessions: No. 1 Court” there’s Thomas again, charged with
“breaking, entering, and stealing.”
That not all articles from the news media of the day were of war or favourable outcomes
certainly extends to Harold Leslie Bragg, whose website entry tells of his AN&MEF enlistment,
his AIF duty from Nov 1915 to 1919 during which he was a prisoner-of-war (via his Australian
War Memorial Red Cross File link)… and his demise aged 34 a year after returning home within
a link heading “Tram Conductor’s Death” telling of Harold “knocked from the footbridge of his
tram, sustaining injuries from which he died later. The evidence stated he moved along the
footboard and swung out a little too far, was struck by the side of the bridge, and fell.”
Similarly the account of a returned Sandringham soldier (The Bathurst Times, October 1922,
under the headline “Was It Murder? Death In Reception House, Sydney.”): – “An inquest was
held concerning Martin John D’Arcy, who was buried in the pauper’s section of Rookwood
Cemetery, removed to the Roman Catholic section, exhumed and reburied. When he went to
the Reception House on July 4 he was suffering from the after-effects of alcohol, and died the
following morning after a fit.” The article records the finding of three doctors’ post-mortem
accounts after which Martin’s sister Mary declares that “he was a violinist before the war and
lost an arm”, perhaps implying depression as a cause to his alcoholism, at which point the story
jumps to “two months after he was buried, a woman, who refused to give her name, came
[forward] and said that he had been murdered.” Many paragraphs later we are none the wiser,
with the matter “adjourned to October.”
Of the war, on the other hand – and in this case ultimately favourable – are articles concerning
the Breakspear brothers, Francis Edgar and Harry Victor, both reported “wounded in France”,
with their anxious relatives having to wait to mid-1919 for an update… “Mrs C. M. Breakspear,
of West Kogarah, has received word that her two sons are returning home”; also ‘of the war’,
favourable, and perhaps somewhat of a surprise to Charles Brissenden Doust’s parents waiting
for him in Arncliffe, was not only was their ‘wait’ overly long (advised of his return on R. M. S.
Orvieto in April 1920) but he wouldn’t be alone, “accompanied by his wife” as per a St George
Call link.
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Of the 990 photos in ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ (on the other hand), some are sourced from the
post-war publication All Australia Memorial, NSW Edition, a copy of which (at Kogarah RSL)
belonged to Edgar Cecil Downes, of whom an AIF Project link informs that he was a baker at
time of enlistment October 1917, returned home a year later, was married and resided in
Marrickville (his connection being his Rockdale Municipal Honour Roll entry), with his ‘name’ a
link to a Sydney Mail pre-war (by five months) society section titbit – “Sydney people displayed
a lot of interest in the wedding between Mr Edgar Downes and Miss Isabel Maddrell. St James’
Church was the scene of the ceremony with the reception held at The Cairo, Macleay Street,
Potts Point. Prior to her marriage the bride was guest of honour at several tea-parties.”
That there were sinners (the Breakspears and Edgar Downes aside) no doubt, and not all can be
heroes, just as not all were heralded so in spite of the evidence: for instance, ‘BETHEL, S. T.’ of
St Andrews Anglican Church, Sans Souci. Never mind the initials in reverse order on the honour
board, they are of Thomas Stanley Bethel, unknown but for a December 11, 1915 “Only A Hero”
St George Call link… “Private Bethel, who was invalided home some months ago with his ankle
shattered, unfortunately has been unable to receive necessary assistance from the patriotic
funds that were given for such purposes. Undecorated, the story of his bravery might have
been lost but for the men of the 2nd Battalion [who] will never forget, for they alone know how
[he] saved their lives.”
Quoting “Pte. W. H. Lindsay, who returned lately” the article describes he and others “heading
a charge at Gaba Tepe through barbed wire, in and out of trenches filled with water, when we
forced to stop and dig in. Several machine guns only fifty yards away were causing havoc
amongst the men. “That trench must be reconnoitred and the guns located or we will be wiped
out. Any volunteers?” yelled Lieut. Shout. Well, it was suicide, but Bethel jumped up at once,
waited a moment, then dashed off alone across that bullet-swept space. He had only gone a
few yards when he was hit, but he kept going. A moment afterwards one of his fingers was shot
off. Three more decided to join him, and by the time they reached Bethel he had been hit again.
But after bayoneting four Turks they found the trench and the guns and returned. The Battalion
was saved.
They brought him back unconscious, his ankle shattered, one finger gone, and four flesh
wounds on his body. He didn’t hear the cheers that the boys gave. But they knew what they
had been saved [from] by that band of volunteers headed by Pte. Bethel.”
Unlike Private Bethel, there (under “Australians Honoured” in The Sydney Morning Herald) are
the exploits of John Wilfred Buckeridge (of Wollongong, connected by brother Charles Stanley
of Rockdale, himself raised from obscurity by Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
data, neither brother listed on local honour rolls):- “for repairing telegraph wire under heavy
shell fire in France, the Military Medal has been awarded”; and, while John Butler’s Military
Medal citation is within an AIF Project link, there’s the lengthier St George Call version, “An
Arncliffe Hero. On the occasion of the return from the war of her foster son, the residence of
Nurse Spinks was gaily decorated with the flags of the Allied Nations. Private Butler brings a fine
record back with him. How [he] distinguished himself may be gathered from the message sent
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 20 of 25
by Major General Sir H. W. Cox, congratulating “Private J. Butler on his great bravery in carrying
messages when the shell fire was so heavy as to stop other runners during operations of August
1916. A contemporary, describing the investiture by the King remarked, “One, a small chap,
Private Butler, looked a midget among his mates - the King had to stoop to pin his medal on.””
Yet another ‘name’ with an award entry – Military Cross – is Leonard Walter Collett (not that he
might have envisaged the citation “for conspicuous gallantry, he led his platoon through very
heavy shell and machine gun fire, capturing three machine guns, seven prisoners, and inflicting
severe casualties” back in 1916 when, four months prior to enlisting, the St George Call features
Leonard as charged with “riding a bike in Bat Street, Rockdale, brought 10/- and 6/- costs.”)
No such honour bestowed upon Allan Walter Butcher (Bexley RSL Bexley Municipality Honour
Roll) but then, considering his war commenced the same year it ended, perhaps he hadn’t the
opportunity – not that he hadn’t time to write home from Egypt that January: a St George Call
link – “we are having a fairly good time in spite of everything. We left the boat yesterday and
walked four or five miles with our packs on our backs to this camp. Winter is here now. Days
are warm but the nights very cold. We are getting leave to see the town tomorrow afternoon.”
Similarly Ernest Leslie Collins of Rockdale, “at present an inmate of the County of London War
Hospital” (as per his St George Call link) has time to pen home in February 1916: - “It is now just
on four months since I was admitted and I don’t seem to have improved much” [eventually he
does, his AIF Project link noting his return to Australia September 1917. Not as fortunate his
brother Roy, killed at Messines June 1917 (his grave photo an Australian War Memorial photo
link), although another brother, Henry Victor, returned in October 1916].
Ernest continues: - “We are all the time explaining Australia to the people here who nearly
drive us mad with the questions. A few samples will show what we have to put up with. “Have
you any pretty scenery out there?” “Do kangaroos really have feathers?” “Have all the white
men come and only blacks are left?” [to which Ernest, had he been aware, could reply ‘no’ and
mention Sydney Moses Cunningham, the links of whom – Australian War Memorial photo and
The Harrower Collection details – state that he be ‘Aboriginal’ (the only ‘name’ described so in
‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’)]
Ernest again: - “One thing I miss is a day with the fish. I can get the loan of the gear but there
are no fish here about except in the shops.” And on Ernest goes, quite descriptive regarding
London at the time, finishing off with “Give my best wishes to all the boys.”
That there was heroism, no doubt, and not all bravery was confined to the men – for instance,
Nurse Edith Blake of Sans Souci and her three separate website entries.
While her ‘name’ is an external link to her parent’s Sydney Morning Herald memoriam (one
year after her death ‘on active service’) another link (http://nurses.ww1anzac.com/bl.html)
details her demise aboard the torpedoed hospital ship, Glenart Castle, while yet another is to
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 21 of 25
journalist and grandniece Krista Kneeshaw’s account of how Edith Blake’s letters, diary and
other articles made their way from family folklore to the Australian War Memorial.
Letters to home populate ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ – of the many, those of Ernest Walter Carr
(of Carlton and Bexley Municipal Honour Roll) contain a covert cynical tone (understandable,
given his circumstances), “writing to his parents”:- “Thanks for telling me about the garden.
Would you like to hear about mine? Looking out the door of our “cottage” you would see a
lovely bed of thistles – beyond that the scene would surpass your imagination. The remains of a
wheat field, long since abandoned, well decorated with shell holes. Fritz, the gardener, likes to
give us a change, so from day to day he adds a few more shell holes. On the right you would see
some timber and more shell holes and debris. On the left it is more interesting, for there in the
sap is the gas alarm gong. Last night Fritz sent us “somme” new plants, and planted them too,
right in front of the door. I don’t care for them much because they filled our house with smoke.
These don’t grow in Australia and are called whizz-bangs. At night the panorama is superb,
cheap concerts in the moonlight, and Fritz supplies us with beautiful rockets.
I am looking on the brighter side of things, although I have lost so many mates that it hurts me
to think about them. When out scouting I climbed a pear tree and evidently Fritz the gardener
saw me, for every time I tried to get down Fritz went “pit, pit, pit” against the trunk of the tree
just below my toes, and made me climb up again quickly, until at last I got desperate and
jumped down and chanced it.”
Ernest Carr’s sombre description of his reality is that of an ordinary City of Rockdale enlistee
who experienced extraordinary times, a tale not unlike Walter Ernest Brown’s Victoria Cross
citation, or Ivan Armstrong, the only of three brothers to serve with New Zealand forces; the
tragedy of nurse Florence Auld whose husband died two years before the war; another soldier’s
eulogy for Vintom Baltam Baker who was killed at Fromelles; and Frank Osborn Bancroft and his
parents’ letter following his death at Gallipoli – a mere handful of the ‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’
who moved the Western Front Association (Australia) Chairman, Lt Col Paul Simadas to email
(March 2015):- I would be delighted if you will accept an invitation to be a speaker at our
November meeting. I invite you to speak about Rockdale servicemen in the Great War,
particularly those who received gallantry awards or were highly regarded in their local
communities. An overview of the special data-base you have created would be of great value.
~~
(For interest purposes, formatted ‘screen grabs’ of the website follow)
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 22 of 25
‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ SOURCES page
This is a non-commercial website - there is no association with any similar project, local or
otherwise. All data has been verified against official records - however, errors are possible
and will be corrected if so notified.
While August 2014 marked the centenary of the commencement of the First World War, the
main media focus (within a title 'Australia Remembers') will be upon the Gallipoli campaign that
commenced April 25 1915 (and for the most part referenced as 'ANZAC 2015')
Of course, Australia's involvement - Rockdale and surrounding suburbs (ARNCLIFFE, BANKSIA,
TURRELLA, BARDWELL PARK, KYEEMAGH,BRIGHTON-LE-SANDS, SANS SOUCI, KOGARAH (part),
CARLTON (part), BEXLEY, BEXLEY NORTH, KINGSGROVE, MONTEREY, RAMSGATE,DOLLS POINT,
SANDRINGHAM) included - extended much beyond.
This project aims to centralize readily-available information for the purpose of recalling those
enlistees from the local government area known as the 'City of Rockdale' - some of whom were
recorded on a local church or RSL honour roll, many of whom were not. This is a communityminded effort, entirely free - a format that provides for remembrance, reference, and further
research. All that is requested is acknowledgement of ownership of concept and design.
Sources –
Local (City of Rockdale) First World War honour rolls and libraries;
Australian War Memorial (www.awm.gov.au);
National Archives of Australia (http://naa.gov.au);
The AIF Project, UNSW Canberra 2014 (www.aif.adfa.edu.au);
Discovering Our Anzacs (http://discoveringanzacs.naa.gov.au);
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (www.cwgc.org);
State Library of NSW Crowne Studio Portraits (http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au);
Golden Diggers (Helen Wood and Lorraine Purcell of Hill End and Tambaroora Gathering Group
(http://heatgg.org.au/he/);
Boer War Memorial website (www.bwm.org.au);
Barry Ennever Genealogy website (www.ennever.com);
University of Wollongong (http://encore.library,uow.edu.au);
Australian Light Horse Studies Centre (alh-research.tripod.com);
Soldiers of the Queen (Dr Robin McLachlan; Boer War nominal roll);
Australians in the Boer War Oz-Boer War Project (Colin Roe; members.pcug.org.au);
Media publications and literature of the period via Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au);
Sydney Mail (Google News Archive);
Items offered by community individuals;
The Harrower Collection (www.harrowercollection.com);
WW1 Nurses (nurses.ww1anzac.com)
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 23 of 25
‘WW1 Rockdale Enlistees’ PROJECT SUPPORT page
Support - linking WW1 Rockdale Enlistees website
Rockdale Council http://www.rockdale.nsw.gov.au/Pages/Anzac100.aspx
Kingsgrove RSL (Sub-Branch/Wayne Mcfadyen, Manager)
http://www.kingsgroversl.com.au/subbranch.html
Bexley RSL (Anton Dworzak Manager) https://www.facebook.com/bexleyRSL
Brighton-Le-Sands RSL (Gary Pearson) http://www.brightonrsl.com.au/www/home/
Register of War Memorials New South Wales https://www.warmemorialsregister.nsw.gov.au/
World War One Link http://worldwaronelink.com.au/
Harrower Collection http://www.harrowercollection.com/index.html
St George Historical Society http://stgeorgehistsoc.org.au/links/
Support - permission to establish internal links
State Library of New South Wales (Crowne Studio Collection)
The AIF Project http://www.aif.adfa.edu.au:8080/index.html
Australian Dictionary of Biography http://adb.anu.edu.au/
Penrith City Council / Harrower Collection
GraveSecrets - http://www.gravesecrets.net/ Faithe Jones
Support - contribution (relatives) or appreciation
Kogarah Library (local residential information)
Ross Bell (initial Register of War Memorials NSW contact)
Monica McInerney (relatives - Percy Rutherford & John McInerney)
Brian Russell (relative - David Russell)
Kerry Donaghy (relative - Harold Victor Buchanan)
Carmel & Ellis Bollard (relative - Raymond Thomas Bollard)
Noel Duncan (relatives - Samuel Thomas Baylis & brothers)
Joy Dean (relatives - Cecil Augustine Dean & Arthur Charles Hawkins)
Father Brendan Quirk (relatives - Benedict John Dunstan, Reuben Francis Dunstan, Stanley
Ewart Page, William Henry Page)
Coralie Lewin (relatives - Alexander & Augustus Faerber)
David Deasey (relative - John Victor Goodman)
Lynette Armstrong (relative - Arthur Gordon Hardie)
John Casey (relative - Charles Henry Lester)
Tony Mangioni (relatives - George & Thomas McPherson)
Lorraine Purcell (Hill End Historical Group)
Peter Hoare (relative - Victor Stirling)
Janice Jarrett (relative - Robert Edward Rigby)
Helen Patfield (relative - Stanley Tuckwell)
Syd Williams (relatives - Frederick George, James, & Rupert, Williams)
Alan Kitchen (relative - Arthur Leslie Williams)
Alan McKenzie (relatives - Norman, Sydney Roy, John Gordon McKenzie)
Roslyn McKinney (relative - Robert John Street)
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 24 of 25
Ann Tracey (relative - Hilton Stuart Nicholls)
Ernest J Molloy (relative - Eric Molloy)
Sharryn Gannon (relatives - Richard Ernest Jones; Henry Peter Willis)
Raymond Sharp (relative - Jack Sharp; note of appreciation)
Pamela Dures (relative - Thomas Albert Dures; note of appreciation)
Western Front Association (Lt Col Paul Simadas; note of appreciation)
Heritage Darlington Point (research query - Eric Michael Conolly)
Patricia Burke (relative - James Burke)
Kath and Alex Petsogolou (relative - Claude William Smith)
Charles Henry Davis © 2015 - Page 25 of 25