An unidentified soldier standing on Pascoe Vale Road, Glenroy near Prospect Street, 1918

 

Image E2_1G.001. Courtesy Moreland Libraries.

I came across this photo, and the one you see below of two women and a boy standing with the same man, when I was searching the Moreland Libraries Local History Catalogue.

Image E2_2G.001. Courtesy Moreland Libraries.

In the absence of any identifying material, I set out to find out as much as I could about the photographs.

These two photos were taken at the same time and in the same place along Pascoe Vale Road (near the Prospect Street intersection). They both face in the same direction. The muddy, rutted road is the same, the fence running along the property on the left is the same and the same tree is featured in both photos. Even though the soldier is wearing a coat, the women are not and there are leaves on the tree, so it must have been either autumn or spring.

I’m no further advanced in my quest to identify the soldier or the two women or the boy, who looks to be about 12 and appears to be wearing a school cap (or is it a Boy Scout uniform?) and is pointing his toy gun at the photographer. The woman on the left stands close to the soldier and leans into his side, but is she his sister, a friend, fiancee, wife? The woman standing a little to the side looks a little older. I can’t see a wedding ring, so is she an older sister, perhaps?

The soldier is tall and solidly built and he doesn’t look like a youth. That’s as far as I’ve been able to go.

The photo is dated 1918, so is this a returning soldier? Or someone who has yet to leave for the Front? Impossible to know. If he’s yet to leave, it’s likely to be an autumn photo. If he’s just returned, then it’s spring and it’s possible that he was an early enlistee, served on the Gallipoli Peninsula and came home early on ANZAC leave. But this is all conjecture. It’s impossible to know without more information.

There is one clue that with further work might lead to a firm identification – the next photograph in the sequence is E2_3G.001. It, too, is dated 1918 and shows a member of the Wiseman family walking home from church with the local clergyman Rev Robert Thomson. (My next blog entry will feature this photo.)

So, are these members of the Wiseman family, perhaps?

I wrote about the Wiseman’s link to the local area’s patriotic effort six years ago when I wrote about the Glenroy Military Hospital that was housed in the two Wiseman mansions in Widford Road – ‘Ashleigh’ (home of Albert Wiseman, later St Nicholas Boys Home and demolished in 1955) and ‘Sawbridgeworth’ (home of Arthur Wiseman, later St Agnes Girls Home and now Wiseman House). During WW1 it was an infectious diseases hospital (mostly measles cases) and one home housed officers, the other housed the ranks. You can read about that here.

This was part of a series of posts about the Glenroy Military Hospital, funded through the efforts of Coburg woman Linda Davis under the auspices of the local Red Cross Branch. These posts are also published on Wikinorthia and you can read about those here. You can also read more about the development of Glenroy on Wikinorthia. 

And still I’m no closer to identifying this soldier or his companions.

These are great photos, though, and a reminder that just over a hundred years ago Pascoe Vale Road was little more than a dirt track.

I’d be really interested to hear from anyone who can add any further detail on the location or the people in the photo.