Arthur Reynolds’ short but life-changing war

 258 Pte Arthur Thomas Reynolds, 7^th Infantry Battalion

Leader, 19 June 1915

Arthur Reynolds is remembered on the Brunswick Town Hall Honour Roll.

Arthur Thomas Reynolds was born on 14 January 1895 in Hobart, Tasmania. He was the second of the six children of Charles Frederick and Caroline Sarah (nee Miles) Reynolds. His parents, both of English descent, were born in Hobart and married there in 1893, with Charles working as a brick merchant. They had three children in Hobart – Eveline in 1893, Arthur and Max in 1899. The family then moved to Victoria around 1903 and settled in Carlton, living at 88 Berkeley Street, with Charles now working as a painter. Two more children were born in Carlton - Jean in 1907 and Charles in 1909.

In November 1907, Arthur and his brother Max both survived diphtheria, after spending three weeks in the Queens Memorial Infectious Disease hospital. The next year, Arthur, aged 13, started an apprenticeship as a french polisher with Richardson and Adams, cabinetmakers based in Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. In 1909 the family moved to Brunswick, living at 129 Davies Street. Here, in 1913, their youngest son John was born.

In the same year as his youngest brother was born, Arthur, now 18, joined the Militia, presumably as part of the compulsory service that was then in place. He would have expected to serve just 16 days a year for the next 7 years, but 13 months after joining, on 14 August 1914, Arthur enlisted in the AIF and was assigned to the 7^th Battalion. He was now aged 19 years and 7 months, still working as a french polisher and living in Davies Street with his family. He was assigned the rank of Private.

 

Anzac Landing AWM AO5774

Arthur had a short but lifechanging war. On the fateful 25 April 1915, at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, he was struck on his right temple by a shrapnel bullet. The bullet passed through his brain and lodged in his skull. He was unconscious for 4-5 days and was transported to the No. 17 General Hospital in Alexandria, then to a convalescent depot in Mustafa to board the hospital ship “Nevasa”, on which he was sent to England on 16 May. He had an initial loss of memory which lasted four weeks. On arrival in England, Arthur was hospitalised at Birmingham, his injury categorised as “severe”. On 8 June he underwent surgery to remove the bullet from his head. This resulted in a hole in his right temporal bone that was to plague him for the rest of his life.

Arthur spent nearly 6 months in hospitals in England, first Birmingham then convalescing at Stourbridge Hospital, before being sent back to Australia on the “Runic” on 7 November. He arrived in Melbourne on 21 December 1915.

More on Arthur's story in a later post...

Researched and written by Vicki Skidmore, Brunswick Community History Group (BCHG) volunteer.

This work was completed as part of a BCHG project looking into the lives of the 55 Brunswick 7^th Battalion men who left Melbourne with the first convoy on board the Hororata on 19 October 1914. 

Brunswick Sons of Soldiers B Cricket Team. Season 1937-38

 

This photograph of the Brunswick Sons of Soldiers B Cricket Team. Season 1937-38 is part of the rich Moreland City Libraries images collection and is available online through their Local History Catalogue.

The people in the photo have been identified as follows:

Standing: R. Liddle (Comm.), J. Dawson (Comm.), K. Hughes, M. Weston, G. Naylor, E. Binder, R. McCormack (Comm.), A. Horsburgh (Comm.). Seated: W. Barden (Coach), A. Lawson, D. Barden, A. Hughes (Capt.), B. Bridges (V. Capt.), A. Keyte, A. V. Stevenson (Sec.). In Front: D. Slater, J. Barden (Mascot), M. Akam. 

The photo was taken nearly two years before the start of World War Two, so the players are sons of World War One soldiers. It's likely, though, that at least some of them were old enough to served in WW2.

Sons of sailors and soldiers teams were first established at the end of 1931, although the Victorian Branch began in August 1935. There were also football teams. Both Coburg and Brunswick were part of the Essendon District and Essendon also had a team, of course.

These are just a few of the stories behind the names.

M. (Max) Akam (front row, far right)

His father was Alfred (Alf) Westhorpe Akam who was a Lancefield butcher when he enlisted in November 1916. He served with the 10th Reinforcements, 4 Machine Gun Company and left on board the Ballarat on 19 February 1917. His war began early - the Ballarat was torpedoed on Anzac Day 1917. Alf was wounded in March 1918 - shell concussion and machine gun wound to arm and chest. This led to his early repatriation in May 1918. 

On his return, the Lancefield Mercury (12 July 1918) reported that 'he informs us that he did not bring any souvenirs home with him, but he expects to have one shortly, when a bullet “made in Germany” is extracted from his side.’ By October 1918 he was Treasurer of the newly established Dandenong sub-branch of the RSSILA (an earlier name for the RSL)

By 1935 the Akams were living in Brunswick and Alf was a member of the Brunswick branch of the RSSILA as well as serving on the state committee. The family lived at 3 Davies Street, Brunswick and the children attended Moreland Central School.

On 31 March 1943, 19 year old Alfred Maxwell (Max) Akam of the Brunswick Cricket Club, enlisted in the 2nd AIF. He served in New Guinea and was at HQ Australian Area Command, Madang when he was discharged in October 1945.

Max returned to Brunswick and continued to play cricket for Brunswick. He married Gwendoline Atkinson of East Brunswick at St Augustine's, Moreland in early 1950. 

Donald and James Barden (Donald is seated, 3rd from left. Team mascot James is in the middle of the front row.) Coach William Barden (seated on left)

Coach William Barden was the father of Donald and James. He had enlisted in the 1st AIF in December 1915 when he was a month shy of 22.  He was a bootmaker and had been apprenticed to Whybro in Collingwood. He married Jane Shedden in 1921 and by 1925 they were living at 46 Rose Street, Brunswick West, their family home for a number of years.  William died at Parkville in 1964 aged 69.

Donald Barden, who was 15 or 16 in this photo, enlisted in the 2/6th Australian Commando Squadron during World War 2. At the end of the war, he returned to the family home, now at 8 Murdoch Street, Brunswick West.. When he died in 1985 aged 62 Donald was living at Rosebud. 

There are many more stories to follow, stories that take us into the years of the 2nd World War and beyond. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who can bring more of the names in this photo to life. 

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.

Thomas Turner of Fawkner

Herald, 9 July 1917

This snippet is from an article about soldiers who had just won Military Medals. The rather melancholy face looking off into an uncertain future belongs to 18 year old 2414 Pte William Thomas Turner (Tom to his family).

At the time of his enlistment on 10 July 1915, he was an ironworker living with his family in the fledgling settlement of Fawkner. He'd served two years as a senior cadet with 59A area, as had any young man of a similar age, given that cadet training was compulsory at the time.

He left Australia on 29 September 1915 and served in France. Slightly wounded in August 1916, he was able to remain on duty. Later that year, in early December, he was awarded the Military Medal. In late July 1918, he was more seriously wounded - a gunshot wound to the face - and did not rejoin his unit until mid-September. He remained in France until the end of the war until his return to Australia in May 1919. 

On his return he remained in Melbourne's northern suburbs where he and his wife Ella brought up their family of four children. Writing from his home in West Preston in March 1941, he applied for new discharge papers so that he could undertake munitions works. 

Tom Turner's was not a long life. He died at Caulfield Military Hospital on 9 October 1945 aged only 48 and was laid to rest at Fawkner Memorial Park.

Leonard Blackwood of Service Street, Coburg

Richmond Guardian, 10 November 1917

Roll of Honour Circular. Courtesy Australian War Memorial.

Leonard Stanley Blackwood is remembered at the Coburg Lake Reserve Memorial Avenue of Trees (tree 10). At the time of his death his family lived in Coburg, but the Roll of Honour Circular reminds us how mobile the population was in those times. Leonard was born at Leonards Hill near Daylesford, lived for some time in Richmond and called Coburg home at the time he enlisted.

He is buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery (Plot XX, Row I, Grave No. 19), Belgium.

Image courtesy Findagrave.com