William Cooper and his brother Edgar, members of Coburg Cycling Club, enlist

William Knox Cooper, born Hotham (North Melbourne) in 1893 and his younger brother Edgar Robert, born Hotham in 1898 were both members of the Coburg Cycling Club, although they came from Fitzroy.

When 3712 Pte William Knox Cooper, 6th Battalion, 12th Reinforcements, enlisted on 7 July 1915 he was 22 year old bootmaker living in Fitzroy. He embarked on 23 November 1915 on board HMAT A40 Ceramic. There were Coburg servicemen sailing on the same ship - William Irons, Cyril Jolley (KIA September 1917), Frederick Buzaglo, Jack Sheehan, Gerald Roberts, Frederick Atkinson (DOW March 1917) and William Alexander (DOW August 1918). It's just possible, then, that these men met on the ship and had a chat about the suburb they had in common - Coburg. 

Troops embarking at Port Melbourne on A40 HMAT Ceramic, c1915. The wharf is crowded with soldiers waiting to board the troopship. William Cooper was probably one of those men. Image courtesy AWM. Image H19500.

Cooper sustained gunshot injuries in August 1916 and was sent from France to England to the Trent War Hospital (at Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire). 

Stoke-on-Trent War Hospital. (By coincidence, my father was a student at Hanley High School (part of Stoke-on-Trent) during the years of World War One. He vividly remembered zeppelin raids in the area in early 1916 when he was 11 years old. He and his friends thought they were very exciting. No doubt the adults had different ideas.) 

Returned to Australia in November 1916, William Cooper was discharged the following February. One part of his record says he was injured in the leg, another in the feet and yet another in his arm. Whatever the case, on his return it appears he did not go back to cycling. He returned to his former trade of shoemaker, married Ruth Lerwill in 1931 and died in 1973 aged 80.

From William Knox Cooper's WW1 file, courtesy NAA.

When William's brother 6243 Pte Edgar Robert Cooper, 6th Battalion, 20th Reinforcements, enlisted on 11 January 1916 he was an 18 year old tailor living in Fitzroy. He embarked on HMAT A14 Euripides on 11 September 1916. Victor Rogers and William Pascoe (KIA May 1917), both Coburg men, were also on board. 

Troops on board HMAT Euripides (A14) prior to departure, May 1915. A group of nurses stand at the rail, centre foreground. Image courtesy AWM. Image PB0381.

In September 1917 Edgar suffered from gunshot wounds (his left clavicle was broken) and shell shock (he'd been buried alive). He was 19 and had already survived considerable neck trauma from a knife wound inflicted by his mother during a pyschotic episode when he was three years old.

Edgar was sent home and discharged in June 1918. It appears that, like his brother William, he did not return to the Coburg Cycling Club. He lived at home in Fitzroy until 1937 then moved to Kew. He married Kathleen Colger in 1947 and died at Newtown, Geelong in 1986 aged 88.

Their older brother 7460 Pte Francis Henry Cooper, 5th Battalion, 25th Reinforcements, enlisted on 2 July 1917. He was a 26 year old labourer who was born in Preston and like his brothers gave their mother, Mrs Sarah Jane Flett of 9 Leicester Street, Fitzroy as his next of kin. He survived the war, returning to Australia in July 1919. Written on his record at a later date, but undated 'Soldier stated to have been killed in a railway accident.' I searched the TROVE newspaper collection for a report of this event without success. The Victorian Death Index states that he died at Melbourne East (so most likely in hospital) in 1928 aged 38.

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The Cooper brothers' mother was born Sarah Jane Knox, daughter of James Knox JP of Union Avenue, Northcote who died in July 1901 aged 69 and was buried at Coburg Cemetery.

Not long after Knox's death, in late August 1901, Sarah Jane Cooper was taken from her home in North Melbourne (with her youngest child Edgar) to stay at the Knox family home in Northcote because the family was concerned about what they saw as 'signs of approaching insanity'. Here she was looked after by her brother Thomas and mother Eliza. There had been no symptoms until three weeks earlier, just after her father's death. Now, she had cut her son's throat and it was only through the intervention of her brother and mother that the child's life was saved. Later she remembered nothing of the incident, but she was admitted to Yarra Bend Asylum where she eventually recovered and was released in March 1902. (Argus, 26 August 1901, Herald, 2 September 1901, Bendigo Independent, 3 September 1901, Yarra Bend Asylum records)

After her husband Edmund Cooper's death in 1904, Sarah married again (in 1911) to James Flett. Despite the dramatic events in their early lives, the Cooper brothers lived at home with their mother and step-father until they enlisted. Their mother Sarah died in 1930 at Cheltenham aged 69.

Charles Sullivan, teacher at Coburg High School

Studio portrait of 15195 Staff Sergeant (SSgt) Charles Frederic Sullivan, 14th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Medical Corps of Flemington, Victoria. A school teacher prior to enlisting, he embarked from Melbourne aboard HMAT Karoola (A63) on 19 August 1916. While stationed with his unit at Port Said, Egypt, he contracted pneumonia and died of the disease at Gaza, Palestine on 15 November 1918, aged 37. He is buried in the Gaza War Cemetery, Israel. Image P05248.132. Courtesy Australian War Memorial. 

Thirty-four year old Charles Sullivan had been married for six years when he enlisted in February 1916. He and his wife Ellen lived in Flemington but his work as a teacher had taken him to various Victorian schools, including Enoch's Point and Big River before he entered the Training College in Carlton and studied at Melbourne University, gaining his Bachelor of Science degree. He worked briefly at the Training College in Carlton, at Williamstown High School and Coburg High School, where he was a temporary assistant for a month before he went on leave with the AIF.

From Charles Sullivan's WW1 dossier outlining his academic qualifications.

We are told in the Education Department's Record of War Service (see below) that after graduation he was offered a position in the Forestry Department but decided to enlist and was placed in the ‘bacteriological branch of hospital work’ based at Cairo then Port Said. 

He served in Cairo with the 14 AGH until 31 October 1918 when he contracted pneumonia. 

Group portrait of members of No 14 Australian General Hospital. See alternate images for positions of those named in this caption. Those identified by numbers: include 15195 SSgt Charles Frederick Sullivan (died of disease in Palestine on 15 November 1918 as Lieutenant Pathologist). Image A01350. Image courtesy AWM. 

Charles Sullivan is the soldier marked in the second row.

Charles Sullivan, a man who showed such promise, died at Gaza on 15 November 1918 and was buried at Gaza Military Cemetery, Palestine. He had been suffering from malaria as well as pneumonia. He had been at Coburg High School for a short time only, probably not long enough to make an impression on his pupils. 

Ellen Sullivan received three packages containing her late husband's belongings and they reveal something of the man and his interests. I don't think I've ever found such a long list, but then Sullivan was based at the one hospital for the whole of his time in Egypt, unlike men at the Front who would have had to travel light.

You can find out more about Sullivan, and other family members, on Lenore Frost's website, the Empire Called and I Answered. 

Arthur Broom, Coburg cyclist and WW1 soldier changes his name

Arthur Clarence Broom was brought up in Davis Street, Coburg (and later in Bell Street west) by Robert Broom (born in Coburg in 1852) and his wife Johanna Wark. The Brooms had three children of their own - Catherine, Lena, Robert Leslie (known as Les) and two 'adopted' sons - Arthur and William. 

Arthur's brother Les was a rising star in the local cricket and football world, but in November 1915 he died of pneumonia, aged 23. So Arthur and William were the only brothers left - and they both enlisted.

Like his brother Les, Arthur was a promising sportsman. He played football for Fawkner and was a member of the Coburg Cycling Club. Newspaper reports in the year leading to his enlistment note that he had been in 'striking form' as a cyclist. (Brunswick and Coburg Leader, 13 February 1914)

A milk carter by trade, he worked for Edwin Parker of DeCarle Street, Brunswick and had had a few run-ins with Coburg's sanitary inspector W.H. Budds regarding the sale of adulterated milk and it was noted by the inspector that he 'seemed to be of a defiant disposition.' (He'd tried to avoid the inspector by speeding off.)

On 2 July 1915, 2786 Private Arthur Clarence Broom enlisted in the 6th Infantry Battalion, 9th Reinforcements. He was 20 years old. He embarked in September and served in France where he was hospitalised a number of time with cellulitis in the leg. He was later wounded, but it was not a severe wound and he was able to remain on duty. He had a number of run-ins with the authorities but even so, was promoted to Lance Corporal in August 1917. He returned to Australia in March 1919 and was discharged in July.

At this point, he changed his name to Arthur Clarence O'Brien, later stating that he was an adopted son of the Brooms. 

The claim that he was alone in the world might well have been true in 1956 when he was living in far off Western Australia, but this was not always the case. Up until the 1940s he was living in Coburg and working at his old trade of milk carter. He had married (to Grace Healey) in 1926 and they had four children. 

His return to civilian life had not been smooth. In 1920, at Wirrabara Police Court (in the southern Flinders Ranges), he was found guilty of stealing clothing and supplies and sentenced to three months in prison. That his was an unsettled existence is evidenced by the fact that he was known to the court under four names - Arthur Clarence O'Brien, Larry O'Brien, Donald Fenwick and Arthur Clarence Broom. (Laura Standard and Crystal Brook Courier, 3 December 1920)

But after his marriage to Grace Healey in 1926, his name disappeared from the newspapers - until December 1941 when he and another man were involved in a fracas at a picket at Leeming's dairy in Victoria Street, Brunswick. Accused of assault, the men were sentence to a month's imprisonment. (Herald, 7 December 1941)

Arthur and Grace O'Brien divorced in 1949. She remained in the local area for the rest of her life, but Arthur moved to West Australia. In December 1956 his address was Warriedar Station via Wubin, WA and it was from there that he wrote that he had 'no one in this world to fall back on.' (Letter of application for the age pension, December 1956).

He died in Perth in 1970 aged 85.

Arthur Broom/O'Brien's 'brother' William Broom served as 501 (1864) Sapper William Broom in the 5th Infantry Battalion. He enlisted in January 1915 aged 22 and like Arthur, he was a milkman. He served in France and was sent to England with appendicitis in June 1916. Later that year, on 11 November 1916, he married 18 year old Gladys Morton at Peckham. After a period in England and many run-ins with the authorities, he returned to France where he was wounded in the right knee in May 1918, a wound that saw him return to Australia in January 1919.

Like Arthur, William Broom changed his name after the war. As William O'Meara, he married Esther Davis in July 1919. The problem was that he was still married to Gladys Morton, who had remained in England and was receiving a military pension. In 1925 he was found guilty of bigamy and given a 6 months' suspended sentence. Things can't have gone well for the O'Mearas, because in April 1927 William, now a resident of Port Melbourne, was released from gaol having agreed to pay off arrears owning for the maintenance of his child. By July he was back in prison, having failed to pay.

The final sighting of William O'Meara is in July 1935. He was living in Musswellbrook, NSW and had applied for a replacement discharge certificate - needed so he could apply for work. 

So it appears that life was not kind to the 'Broom' brothers who served in World War One. They were not alone, of course, but those without family support must have found life very tough indeed, especially through the Depression years of the 1930s.