Roy Yorke of Champ Street, Coburg

 

2920 Signaller Roy Yorke, 6th Infantry Battalion, 9^th Reinfs.

Roy, the second youngest of ten surviving children, and his eldest brother Robert (19 years older) both served in the 1st AIF. The family came to Brunswick from New Zealand in the late 1880s before moving to Coburg where Robert Yorke senior worked as an overseer at Pentridge Stockade.

Roy was born in Brunswick in 1897 and was just under 19 years old when he enlisted on 28 June 1915. Roy was an apprentice engineer with A.T. Richardson in Elizabeth Street (Melbourne) when he enlisted and his parents had to give permission for him to join up.

Not many non-prisoners could give their address as The Stockade, Coburg, but this was where Robert and Minnie Yorke were living when they wrote their permission letter for Roy to join up.

He served on Gallipoli then in France, was hospitalised for a few weeks with flu in July 1918 then returned to his unit where he was suffered a severe gunshot wound to his right foot and knee and was transferred to the 3rd Southern General Hospital in Oxford.

He returned to Australia in January 1919 and died at Heidelberg in 1971 aged 73.

Brothers James, Edgar, Bert and Sam Gay enlist

Graphic of Australia, 11 May 1917

Although these four brothers were identified in the Graphic of Australia as the sons of Mr and Mrs Gay of Coburg, when they enlisted their parents Edmund John and Ellen (Phillips) Gay were living in Nicholas Street (later Piera Street), East Brunswick. 

The brothers are not listed on the Coburg Town Hall Honour Board. James is listed on the Brunswick Town Hall Honour Board, but not the other brothers. Sam was living in Moonee Ponds when he enlisted and is featured on the Empire Called and I Answered website. At different times, various members of the family lived in Coburg, so although their connections were to Brunswick when they enlisted, the family would have been known to some in Coburg. 

6537 Lance-Corporal Bert Stewart Gay, 6th Field Company Engineers. He was a 27 year old widower who named his son Albert Edmund as his next of kin when he enlisted in  September 1915, although his attestation papers note that he had remarried - in 1915 - to Lila Mary Gitson - and his next of kin was changed to his second wife. He was killed in action on 27 August 1916 in France, so his son had lost both parents by the time he was seven. His son, living with Mrs West at Murrumbeena, received Bert's effects, small compensation for the loss of a father, however. Lila Gay received the Memorial Plaque (the so-called Dead Man's Penny).

3307 Pte James Philip Gay, 6th Battalion, 11th Reinforcements. James Gay left Melbourne on 10 October 1915 on the same ship as his brother Sam. He was hospitalised in Egypt with mumps in February 1916 then again with neurasthenia in April 1916.  Soon afterwards he returned to Australia and married Margaret Isabel Marshall in 1917. He died at Sale in 1953 aged 63.

3301 Pte Samuel Archibald Gay, 6th Battalion, 11th Reinforcements. When he enlisted, Sam Gay was married and living in Moonee Ponds. You can read more about him on Lenore Frost's Empire Called and I Answered website here. Sam left Australia on the same ship as his brother James. He was wounded in France (shell wound to right buttock and gunshot wound to his forehead), was hospitalised but returned to his unit where he was wounded again in August 1918 - a gunshot wound to right thigh and a fractured left leg. His right leg could not be saved and it was amputated. He'd been wounded while taking rations up the line and a shell burst alongside him. Left with no memory of the event and suffering from head pains and tremors in his head and arms, he was diagnosed with neurasthenia. Despite his significent injuries, he died at Ashburton in 1970 aged 77. 

5353 Pte Edgar Roland Gay, 22nd Battalion, enlisted in April 1916 at a time when his parents were living at 7 Hatton Grove, Coburg. In January 1917 he suffered from a gunshot wound to his right leg and by July he had returned to Australia. He was discharged in November 1917. Edgar Gay, the youngest of the brothers to serve, died at Dromana in 1978 aged 80.

As is the way with research of this kind, the interconnections between Brunswick and Coburg are many. For example, the brothers' sister, Ellen Christina Gay, married 3064 Driver Leslie Gordon Dix, 24th Battalion, an old boy of Coburg State School who is featured with his older brother Frederick in my book The Old Boys of Coburg State School Go To War (available for purchase from Coburg Historical Society). Although the Dix family lived in Coburg when Leslie and his brother Frederick went to war, he lived in Brunswick on his return until his death in 1950 aged 57. Frederick was killed in action in Belgium on 1 January 1918.

Frederick (seated) and Leslie Dix. Courtesy Coburg Historical Society.

Leslie Kennett of Gladstone Street, East Coburg wins the Military Medal

Herald, 4 Aug 1917

2614 Pte Leslie Gordon Kennett served in France with the 8th Battalion. He embarked in September 1915 and in January 1916, before he could see any action, he was hospitalised for a month with diptheria then developed tonsilitis.

Choubra, 1916. This view is of the Egyptian infectious diseases hospital where Leslie Kennett was treated. The view is from the nurses' home. It had been a civilian hospital but became a military hospital in August 1915 with an Australian CO and Australian nurses. Image courtesy AWM. Image PO1425.005.

Kennett recovered, convalesced at Helouan then returned to his unit. He was awarded the Military Medal in September 1916 for bravery rescuing wounded men at Pozieres. (The citation below has noted an incorrect given name.)

Courtesy AWM

As well as this award for bravery, Kennett, like so many other soldiers, also clashed several times with the authorities, once for gambling (with cards) on the journey from England to France. 

Image courtesy Australian War Memorial. Image HO3557. Taken at Brown's Dip, Lone Pine, Gallipoli in 1915. The soldiers are playing 'two-up'. Minutes after the photograph was taken, four of these men (plus another six not in the photo) were dead from an enemy shell burst.  

Kennett survived the war, returned to Australia in 1919 and settled in Brunswick where he applied for the Anzac Medal in 1967. 

He died at Brunswick in January 1969.