Possession
MY BELOVED FIRST BORN
LIEUTENANT JACK KEITH CURWEN-WALKER
Jack Keith Curwen-Walker was the eldest of John and Lucy Curwen-Walker's seven children. John Curwen-Walker died in 1905 and the children went to live with their father's mother and his sisters. A letter from their mother, in Curwen-Walker's service file, explains that, after her husband's death, "circumstances necessitated my little sons (sic) living with his grandmother & Aunts who supervised his education until the age of 17 years when he began to care for himself".
Curwen-Walker was a keen sportsman and something of a speed merchant. He represented the State of Victoria in ice hockey and was a member of the team that won the first inter-state Goodall Cup in 1910. In 1914 he broke the Australian motor-cycling speed record over one hundred miles when he cut 47 minutes off the previous record, which had only been set three weeks earlier. Curwen-Walker, riding "an Indian machine", averaged 56 mph over the course.
The American 'Indian Motor Cycle Company', was at this time the largest manufacturer of motor cycles in the world. Such was Curwen-Walker's enthusiasm for the machines that just before the war he took up an agency for the company.
In October 1916, he joined the Australian Flying Corps, giving one of his aunts, Miss Isabella Curwen-Walker as his next-of-kin. Qualifying as a pilot in September 1917 - delayed by having to recover from a crash - he joined No. 2 Squadron in Palestine in January 1918.
On the morning of 3 May 1918, soon after taking off from the airfield, Curwen-Walker's plane was seen to spin and crash. It was thought that through inexperience he had tried to climb too quickly. Both he and his observer, Corporal Jensen were killed.
Initially it was his aunt, Isabella, as his next-of-kin, who was informed of his death, but it was his mother who eventually chose his inscription.
OUR BRAVE AND ONLY CHILD
AT REST
PRIVATE HERBERT DICKINSON QUICK
Herbert Quick volunteered in May 1915 when he was 18 and 10 months old. If they were under 19, soldiers had to have their parents' signed consent to serve abroad. Quick's attestation form notes that he has his father's consent. Quick did not have to enlist, there was never any conscription in Australia; how bitterly his parents must have regretted this when he was killed - their "brave and only child".
Quick served with the 3rd Australian Pioneers. He died in a general hospital in St Sever. There's no indication as to when he was wounded but from 21 October to 12 November 1917 the battalion were out of the line, billeted in the village of Wavrens resting and undergoing training. Prior to 21 October, the battalion had been engaged in building a mule track from Zonnebeke to Seine Road. Work began on 1 October and from then until the 21st between 1 and 12 ORs (other ranks) were wounded every day, except for the 11th, 12th and 17th when there were 'nil' casualties. This is probably when Quick was wounded.
MY FIRST PRIDE
MY FIRST JOY
MY BRAVE SOLDIER BOY
PRIVATE HEREWARD WILLIAM RAY
Hereward Ray was his mother's eldest child - 'her first pride, her first joy'. He was also 'her brave soldier boy'. I can't help hearing the words of a popular, American anti-war song, written in 1915, in her description of her son. And if this echo is intentional then she's rebuking the song-writers, not agreeing with them. This is the chorus of the song:
I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."
To his mother, Hereward Ray was not only her pride and joy but a brave soldier too. The Ray family was committed to the war. There was no conscription in Australia but Hereward Ray's stepfather and brother both served in it, as did his mother's brother, Hector Archibald Maclean, who was killed in action aged 47, and two of his cousins. One cousin was killed and the other, invalided home, died of his wounds in Australia.
Hereward Ray enlisted in March 1915 and served with the 22nd Australian Infantry, which embarked from Australia in May. It went to Gallipoli where it remained until the evacuation that December. Then it moved to France and took part in the Battle of the Somme at Pozieres. Early in 1917 it went to Flanders. Ray was killed in the trenches on 18 September 1917. A witness related how he and Sergeant Kelly had both died of head injuries having been hit by a shell at Jabber Trench, Westhoek".
HE WAS OUR DEAREST TREASURE
OUR DARLING ONLY SON
OUR BRAVE LADDIE
DRIVER HENRY GEORGE PAM
According to one witness in Pam's Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file:
"Pam was a driver in the 4th Battery and was on the same team with me when he was hit on the 29th Sept at Ypres on the Menin Road. We were on an ammunition wagon. He was hit in the leg, foot and head, and taken to the D/S (Dressing Station)."
From the Dressing Station he was taken to No. 17 Casualty Clearing Station and it was from here that the Officer in Command wrote on 28 November 1917:
"He was admitted to this hospital in a critical condition, having been severely wounded by shell in leg and abdomen. His condition did not improve at all and he died as a result of these wounds at 2pm on 1.10.17. He was buried on 3.10.17 in the Soldier's Cemetery near to this hospital, his grave being duly marked and registered."
A boot maker in civilian life, Pam enlisted on 21 August 1914 and served in Gallipoli throughout the campaign before arriving in France in March 1916. His mother, Caroline Pam, chose his inscription.
AFTER TWO WEARY YEARS
GOD TOOK HIM
TO HIS TWIN BROTHER
MY HAWTON
CORPORAL MATTHEW HAWTON MITCHELL
Corporal Mitchell's twin brother, Frederick, died of wounds on 1 July 1916. Hawton followed him two years later. The Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau found witnesses who could tell his mother what had happened:
"I knew casualty. He was a well built man, 5 ft. 5 ins. dark complexion, about 19 years of age. Casualty was in advance at Peronne Road. He was leading his machine gun team in attack when an H.E. shell exploded a piece entering his leg. I was 20 yds. away at the time. He was carried to hospital."
Pte. A.G. Thornton
16.5.19
The Registrar of No. 1 South African General Hospital finishes the story:
"This man was admitted to this hospital from No. 53 Casualty Clearing Station on the 24th August, 1918. He was suffering from a severe wound on the thigh with fracture of the femur. He had two attacks of secondary heamorrhage, the second of which rendered amputation of the limb necessary. The operation took place on the 1st September 1918. He recovered slightly on returning to his ward but collapsed later and died at 6.30 pm on the 1st September, 1918."
WHEN DAYS ARE DARK
AND FRIENDS ARE FEW
MY DARLING SON
I LONG FOR YOU
PRIVATE ANDREW MCARTHUR
This may be a very conventional memorial inscription, and it is, but it can still jolt the heart. Andrew McArthur emigrated to Australia when he was 18 leaving his widowed mother in Scotland. The very next year war broke out and he volunteered virtually immediately, a fact that is recorded in his service number - 39. It was 24 August 1914. He joined the 8th Battalion Australian Infantry and embarked with it from Australia on 19 October to serve in Egypt, defending the Suez Canal from the Turks.
On 25 April 1915 the 8th Battalion landed on Gallipoli, at Anzac Cove. It remained on Gallipoli until the evacuation in December when it returned to Egypt. Here the Battalion was divided to provide battle hardened soldiers for the newly formed 60th Battalion along with fresh recruits from Australia. McArthur joined the 60th.
In March the Battalion was sent to France and on 19 July went into its first action at Fromelles with disastrous consequences - 780 casualties out of a battalion of 887 men. McArthur must have been one of the survivors - because he was killed fifteen days later.
MY BELOVED HUSBAND
OUR DEAR SON
CHERISHED IN OUR HEARTS FOR EVER
LIEUTENANT ALEXANDER HENDERSON MILLER
I love the way that Lieutenant Miller's parents and his wife, Belle, have shared this inscription - my husband, our son. I've often wondered how it must have been for parents who had to yield their status as next-of-kin to a wife. And sometimes it will have been to a wife of only a few weeks standing. That's why I liked this inscription, which Alexander Miller's wife confirmed.
Alexander Henderson Miller was born in Keiss, Caithness, Scotland where his father, John, was a police constable. At some point after January 1911 the family emigrated to Australia. By the time he enlisted on 7 July 1915, Miller was a school teacher in Beechworth, Victoria.
He left Australia for France a year later, on 8 July 1916 and was killed in action at Polygon Wood on 25 September 1917. A single letter in the Australian Red Cross Wounded and missing files states what happened to him:
"I saw him cut in half by a big shell at Hooge Crater, Ypres on the 25th Sept. He died instantaneously, - no agony whatsoever. He just cried out a couple of times and finished"
Pte W.H. Barkiville 2866
57th Australians, C Co. 12th Pltn
BELOVED SON OF A. & M. ROSS
OUR BOY
LIFE'S HIGHEST MISSION
FULFILLED
PRIVATE WALLACE ROSS
Wallace Ross was admitted to hospital in Rouen on 11 November, dangerously ill with a gun shot wound to his head. He died six days later - 'Life's highest mission fulfilled': to die for your country.
It was his sister, Catherine MacDonald, who filled in the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia and confirmed Wallace's headstone inscription, their parents would appear to have been dead.
Wallace Ross, a rubber worker from Northcote, Australia, enlisted in July 1915 and embarked from Australia on 23 November as part of the reinforcements for the 5th Battalion Australian Infantry. Withdrawn from Gallipoli in mid-December, the battalion served briefly in Egypt before being transferred to the Western Front where it was heavily involved in the Somme campaign at Pozieres. Ross was wounded on 26 July with a slight gun shot wound to the head. He was back in action after two months. And then two months later he was dead.
Three years after the death of her brother, Catherine MacDonald gave birth to a son whom she named Douglas Wallace Ross MacDonald.
LOVED HUSBAND OF EMOND
AND DEAR DADDY OF ROLLO
PRIVATE TASMAN FOSTER BARKER
Emond, Tasman Foster Barker's young widow, made sure that even in far-off France people should know that he was her "loved husband" and the "dear daddy of Rollo". Emond and Tasman married in 1916 and James Rollo was born the same year. And in November that same year, Tasman, a coach builder from Colac, Victoria, enlisted. He left Australia on board HMS Ballarat on 19 February 1917. Two months later, on 25 April 1917, Ballarat was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Cornwall, sinking the next day. However, all 1,752 passengers and crew survived.
Tasman died on 21 April 1918 of wounds received in the first battle of Villers Bretonneux. His brother Rollo, a Second Lieutenant in the Australian Heavy Artillery had been killed two months earlier in a motorbike accident in France.
WHAT IS TO BE WILL BE
DEARLY LOVED SON OF
MARGARET AND SAMUEL HOGAN
PRIVATE GEORGE HENRY HOGAN
It was one of Abraham Lincoln's maxims that, "What is to be, will be, and no prayers of ours can arrest the decree". And what was 'to be' for Margaret and Samuel Hogan? Their son, George, wounded on 11 April 1918 by a bomb from an aeroplane, died of his wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station the next day. The details are given in the Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau Files, "bomb wounds buttock punctuating abdomen arm right".
OUR IDEAL SON
A GENTLE, TENDER, BROTHER
A STEADFAST FRIEND
PRIVATE HAROLD MARCUS SARGANT
According to Harold Sargant's father, who completed the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia, his son "volunteered to restore the line of communication in the big push under very heavy shell fire and his officer said he just completed it when a shell burst and killed him."
Sargant, whose qualities are beautifully described on his headstone, was a farmer before he enlisted in 1916. He embarked from Australia on 9 November that year and was "21 years all but 12 days" when killed in action on 4 April 1918.
OUR BELOVED
SCORTON. LANCS
GUARDSMAN WILLIAM B APPLEGARTH
William Applegarth served in the Machine Gun section of the Coldstream Guards and was killed in action at Combles on 17 January 1917. Born in Casterton, Westmoreland, a fact recorded by his mother in the War Grave Commission's records, where their father was a farmer, the family had moved to Scorton in Lancashire by the time the war broke out.
His younger brother, John Oliver Drouet Applegarth, was killed in action on 9 October 1918 and is buried in Forenville Military Cemetery. His inscription reads:
Our beloved
Scorton, Lancs
OUR DEAR SON
OF ST. JOSEPH'S RECTORY
BARBADOS B.W.I.
FELL NEAR BAPAUME
LOVE NEVER FAILETH
PRIVATE WILLIAM LAWRENCE HUTCHINSON
Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
1 Corinthians 13:8
American Standard Version 1901
William Lawrence Hutchinson was born on Barbados in 1899 where his father, the Reverend William Gordon Hutchinson, was the Anglican priest-in-charge at St Philip-the-Less. In 1910 father moved to St Joseph's on the east of the island. Both parents remained on Barbados until they died, father in 1942 and mother, Priscilla, in 1947. The surviving children inscribed their parents' memorial in St Michael's Cathedral, Barbados with the same quotation that the parents had chosen for their son, William Lawrence: "Love never faileth".
MY DARLING
PRIVATE DAVID HEATHCOTE MELROSE ROBERTSON
"My darling" not our darling, although David Robertson's father was still alive. It was David's mother, Mrs Emma Jane Roberston, who filled in the form confirming the inscription and she wrote "My darling". Father, Mr James Robertson, didn't die until 1950 and he's buried under a headstone which describes him as the beloved father of David, but nevertheless his son's headstone inscription only reads "My darling".
David Robertson was a motor mechanic from Ballarat, Victoria. He enlisted at the age of 18 in July 1915, and was sent to Gallipoli in August where he was wounded and spent some time in hospital on Malta. After the evacuation from Gallipoli in January 1916, the Battalion regrouped in Egypt and then were sent to France in March where they took part in the Somme campaign. In 1917 were sent to the Ypres front. David was killed in action at Zonnebeke during the Battle of Passchendale on 22/23 September. According to his mother, on the form for the Roll of Honour of Australia, he was "twenty and one week" when he died, so not 21 as it says on the War Graves' records. Initially buried without being identified, his body was later exhumed from map reference 28.J.@.d.7.2, identified by the clothing and correspondence on it, and reburied in Sanctuary Wood Cemetery.