Friday 14 August 2020

Albert Dunstan of Tooborac and Coburg


Bendigonian, 22 February 1917.


3181 Pte Albert Dunstan, 6th Field Ambulance and his older brother 255 Horace John Dunstan, who served in the Flying Corps and then the 8th Battalion, were probably used to moving around the countryside, like so many other children of railway stationmasters. Albert was born at Tooborac and Horace at Elsternwick. 

When Albert enlisted in March 1915, his parents were living in Hudson Street, Coburg, but throughout the war they sent the authorities news of their change of address - to Heathcote, then Yea. It must have been difficult for the family to decide just which community they identified with when it came time to place the names of their sons on Honour Boards, for example. In their case, Horace is listed on the Coburg Honour Board, but Albert is not.

This confusion around community identity must have been much the same for all railway children, just as it would have been for the children of Methodist ministers, for example, whose fathers moved every two or three years, that being the custom of the church at the time. Or teachers, or bank officers. Or any other itinerant worker.

Both Dunstan brothers returned to Australia. Albert died in 1954 aged 56 and Horace in 1965 aged 75.