Tuesday 31 March 2020

Eric Pascoe of Louisa Street, Coburg is killed in France




Herald, 7 July 1917


2nd Lieutenant William Henry Eric John (known as Eric) Pascoe, 6th Infantry Battalion, 20th Reinforcements.

Eric Pascoe's parents were Conrad and Emmeline (Crake) Pascoe. He married Marie Louise Paterson at Amesbury, Wiltshire on 6 January 1917. He was 26. She was 40. By May (8th May) Marie Pascoe was a widow.

Interestingly, she had begun life as Marie Pascoe. Paterson was her name from her first marriage. After a little delving, I discovered that Eric and Marie were first cousins. Her father, Joseph Henry Pascoe, was the eldest son of James Meek Pascoe and his wife Harriet Lomas Hill. Eric was the son of Conrad Emil Otto Pascoe, James and Harriet's second youngest child, born 17 years after his brother.

After her husband's death, Marie came to Australia in early 1918 and wrote to the authorities from 32 Louisa Street, Coburg asking what had become of her husband's belongings. This was her aunt and uncle's / parents-in-law's address.

At first it puzzled me why Marie would come out to Australia after such a short marriage, but she would be among family, the government paid for her passage, she had a pension and it would seem that as a war widow she was eligible for a home loan because she moved to Imperial Avenue, Caulfield in the 1920s where she named her home 'Ericon' as a tribute to her late husband. 

She died at South Melbourne in 1946 aged 62.

Her husband, Eric Pascoe, is remembered on the Villers Bretonneux Memorial, on the Town of Coburg Honour Board and in the Memorial Avenue of Trees at Coburg Lake Reserve. 

And as for the claim in the final paragraph that they were both great-grandchildren of an Admiral Pascoe who fought under Lord Nelson at Trafalgar, the closest I've come to authenticating that claim is to discover that their mutual great-grandfather, William Pascoe, had been a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and that at the time of the 1851 census he was a Superannuated Gunner in the Royal Navy. 

Perhaps there's a naval history buff out there who can add more to this story...







Tuesday 24 March 2020

Boer War veteran Major Charles Clements dies of wounds






Brunswick and Coburg Star, 22 September 1916


A Boer War veteran, Charles Clements served with the 31st Battalion and died of wounds received at Fleurbaix, France on 22 July 1916. 


Roll of Honour Circular. Courtesy AWM.


Although his family came from Benalla, Clements was a warder at Pentridge Prison when he enlisted and his wife Elizabeth and their three daughters were residents of O'Hea's Road, Coburg at the time of his death.