Mud and Blood

I saw this play in Moonee Ponds last year and it is an outstanding piece of work.  See it if you can.  Darren Mort is Pompey to the life.

See the Mud and Blood website for further details.

The title of the play is a reference to the colour patch of the 7th Infantry Battalion - brown over red, or mud over blood.

Mud and Blood

 

At the Clocktower Centre, Moonee Ponds, 

31 Aug at  12pm and 8pm

Local hero General 'Pompey' Elliott led the Essendon Rifles and took most with him to WWI after a farewell at Essendon Town Hall..

This compelling play by Moonee Ponds writer, Meg McNena, is directed powerfully by Alice Bishop. Set 1914-1921, in battle and at home, Pompey inspires as husband, father, brother, general, Anzac, veteran, leader. He and a soldier's mother deal with his vow to look after his boys in war as if they were his own. Women's contribution and their struggles also drive the drama. Potent themes of family, duty, loyalty, trauma, betrayal, legacy and grief vividly unfold during world-changing times.

The matinee performance will be followed by a Q&A and then by a talk by Ross McMullin, an award winning historian, biographer and author of two books on Pompey Elliott.

The matinee running times (approx):
Performance: 12.00 - 13.20
Q&A: 13.20 - 13.35
Break: 13.35 - 13.45
WWI Talk: 13.45 - 14.30
Questions: 14.30 - 14.45

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Duration: approximately 80 minutes,no interval. Note: 12pm performance is followed by a Q&A and interval (approximately 160 minutes in total).

Adult	$40
Children (17 and under)	$25
Student (FT)	$25
Concession (Age Pensioner)	$28
Concession (Health Care)	$28
Family (2 Adult / 2 Child)	$110

Book tickets

Ascot Vale Presbyterian Church - For God and Empire

The Honour Roll, pictured in a pamphlet published for the unveiling, in the collection of the Essendon Hist. Society Inc. The Honour Roll and the Church were destroyed by an arsonist in 2004.

The unveiling of the Ascot Vale Presbyterian Church took place on Wednesday 15 September, 1920. Corporal F W Edmonds gave an organ recital which included pieces composed by Handel and Mendelssohn.    Captain-Chaplain W Fraser said the first prayer.  Colonel Chaplain D Macrae Stewart gave the address, and Senator-Brigadier H E Elliott, CB, CMG, DSO, DM, performed the unveiling.

D Macrae Stewart was the minister of the Ascot Vale Presbyterian Church from 1881 to 1903, immediately preceding Chaplain William Fraser.  Stewart served as a Chaplain in Gallipoli and France, but returned to Australia in 1916 when appointed the Senior Chaplain of the 3rd Military District (ie, Victoria).

The honour roll was an opus sectile, beautifully crafted from tiles.  This one was unusual in that it had the colour patches of the AIF represented in a block of tiles just above the legend "The Great War".  Another church in the district with an opus sectile is St Thomas' Church of England in Moonee Ponds.

Maribyrnong-Bagotville Hill Memorial, Victory Park

This memorial in Victory Park commemorated the war service of the men of Ascot Vale West, known at the time as Bagotville Hill, which is the area bounded by Epsom Road and the river, west of Lang's Road and east of Maribyrnong Road. 


In 1922 a summary of the work done by the Maribyrnong-Bagotville Hill Soldiers' Reception Committee was published in the Essendon Gazette, noting:

"The area dealt with by the Committee covered 114 houses, and of these, 40 contained no residents eligible for active service. From the 74 houses remaining, no less than 67 men were sent to the front. Of these, 44 have returned home and been welcomed and each presented with a gold medal.  Nine were killed, and their mothers or next of kin were also the recipients of medals". 

 After the war the committee raised money to erect a memorial in Victory Park, Ascot Vale, and this was unveiled by Brigadier General H E "Pompey" Elliott, a commander of the 7th Infantry Battalion which recruited many volunteers from the district.

Pompey Elliott: our most revered fighting general?

Ross McMullin explores the legend in The Age today.

Elliott was highly regarded by residents in the Essendon area.  He had been the commanding officer of the 58th Infantry Battalion (Essendon Rifles) at the outbreak of the war.   When he returned he was a frequent visitor to the area, invited to preside over the unveiling of many local war memorials.  The local Citizens' Military Association presented the City of Essendon with an individual memorial for Pompey Elliott.

Ken Walker, died of wounds received at Steele's Post

The poignant story of the death of the youthful 2nd Lieutenant Kenneth Walker, a protege of Lieut-Colonel Pompey Elliot, told by Rod Martin.








Image courtesy of Kim Phillips of the Spirits of Gallipoli website.

Pompey Elliott's memorial

Rod Martin has visited the grave of Brigadier-General H E 'Pompey' Elliott and found this wonderful soldier's memorial. 

Elliott was the commanding officer of the 58th Infantry Battalion (Essendon Rifles),  Citizens' Military Force in 1914.  He subsequently raised the 7th Infantry Battalion, AIF and went on to become one of Australia's great WW1 military leaders.

7th Battalion, Headquarters Detail, Broadmeadows 1914

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.)

Patriotic Concert, 8th September 1914

The departure of a contingent of young men with the Australian Imperial Expeditionary Force was a cause for celebration in Essendon, and the volunteers were treated to a concert in the Town Hall, and presented with a program recording their names.

The program features the badge and colours of the local Citizens Military Force Battalion, the 58th Battalion.  The artwork may have been prepared by Mayor Goldsworthy himself, who was a graphic artist.  Goldsworthy designed, made and presented the first Honour Boards honouring the "Boys of Essendon" which were hung in the Essendon Town Hall.