1316 Wren Teale (mistakenly identified in this photograph as Wren Leale) left Melbourne in June 1916 with the 38th Battalion. His family lived in Moonee Ponds, but on 14 May 1915, the Brunswick and Coburg Star listed a number of Coburg cyclists with their addresses and Teale is listed at 50 Munro Street, Brunswick.
At Christmas 1916, Wren sent Season's Greetings to his Coburg Cycling Club mates and said that he was leaving Salisbury Plains soon for the Front. (Brunswick and Coburg Leader, 5 January 1917).
There were to be no Season's Greetings the following year. He was killed on 19 November 1917 near Ploegsteert Wood in north-west Belgium.
Click here to read more about Wren Teale on Lenore Frost's website 'The Empire Called and I Answered'.
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Wren's brother Rheineus also served. He is listed on the Embarkation Roll as 14180 Private Reimens Selwyn Teale of the Hospital Transport Corps and his attestation papers list him as Reinius Selwyn Teale.
As Rheinus Teale, he is listed as a former student of Coburg State School in the school's list of old boys who served, although there is not a separate entry for him in The Soldiers Book produced after the war.
The spelling of his given name remained a quandary for people in many spheres, but it seems it should be Rheineus, this being the spelling his father Alfred used when he wrote giving permission for his son to enlist for home service. It is also the spelling given when his birth was registered in 1897.
Rheineus was young (18) and slight (5' 3" and weighed 104 lbs) and had been rejected before on account of a weak chest. In April 1916 he was accepted for duty on the hospital ship Kanowna. It appears that he remained in Australia and was discharged from the AIF in September 1917.
Rheineus Teale's entry on Lenore Frost's website 'The Empire Called and I Answered' can be seen here.
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