This photo was taken at Broadmeadows Camp in 1914, and has the label on the back "Headquarters Detail 7th Battalion 1st AIF". The men would roughly speaking be identifiable at the top of the first embarkation list of the 7th Battalion Headquarters personnel, but some changes occurred in those personnel between the photo and the embarkation roll. For instance, the owner of the photo is in the photo, but had been transferred to the Machine Gun section prior to embarkation. I would be grateful for any help with further identifications than the ones I have here
Click on the photo for a larger version. (And it's ok, I know Pompey Elliott is there.)
Hi.....my mother's great uncle was pte 485 Harold Mather 7th Battalion enlisting on 20th August 1914. He completed training in Egypt before being wounded in the upper thigh on Anzac day. Unfortunately in the only photo we have of him he has a moustache so I cannot work out if he is in thia photo. Thanks for posting. Cheers Kellie
ReplyDeleteHi Kellie, If you look at the Embarkation Roll at the AWM for Harold Mather, you will see that he was in "D Company", not the Headquarters Detail. If you look at the entire Roll for 7th Infantry Battalion you will also see the Headquarters Detail at the top of the list. On Harold's B3455 Attestation at the National Archives, you can see at the top of the first page that he was changed from D Company (crossed out) to B Company after embarkation. You could do a hunt through the AWM Collection for men from either the B company or D Company of the 7th Infantry Battalion. I searched 7 Infantry Battalion (not Mather), and found this pic which includes a young man with a moustache. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C975976. There are lots of unnamed photos that you could sift through, using the filters on the left. I used Darge to narrow down my search, but that only gives you photos taken in Victoria. You might also use Egypt or other place names where you know he served. My other suggestion would be to look through Discovering Anzacs, or just a web search, for other men on the same page of the Embarkation Roll. They generally stuck pretty close to the men with similar numbers - tent mates, for instance, so if there was a photo of one of the men on his Roll somewhere, Harold might be standing next to him. If you run through my pbworks website the men from the local area (Essendon, Flemington, Ascot Vale, Moonee Ponds), Harold might be lurking in a photo I have on my website. Good luck!
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