Employees of the Metropolitan Gas Co who served in the Great War

Linda Barraclough has located a copy of this very rare book down at Old Gippstown, and has very kindly decided to scan the whole book, and make it available for those who wish to have access to it - and as a continuing record of the service of the men involved.

Linda says: " Accordingly, I am slowly scanning the 62 pages, usually over coffee, and will make it available over the next few weeks. I am hoping that those who access it (and you are welcome to download), will respect my request that is not be otherwise reproduced without further discussion with me. I would be fairly angry is anyone thought it appropriate to lift to sell, as I do not believe money should be made from what is basically a war memorial.

Family history groups / libraries etc are welcome to download to place on CD in appropriate collections. Those wishing to record it on webpages are invited to link to the URL below".

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20949561@N04/sets/72157624475856395/

Centenary of Anzac

Liz Pidgeon of the Yarra Plenty Genealogy blog has drawn attention to calls for ideas and suggestions on how to commemorate the Centenary of Anzac.  Public submissions will be received until 17 September 2010.

Lone Pine, 2008.

Essendon Baptist Church Roll of Honour

This singularly unattractive Honour Board turned up as a postcard on eBay a year or so ago.  The seller managed to identify it as an Essendon board, presumably having looked at the service records of several of the volunteers to see where they were from.  From my own database I could see that they were all baptists, and they lived in the vicinity of the Baptist Church in Buckley Street, Essendon.  An enquiry at that church revealed that the board was removed some years ago, current whereabouts not known.  I believe this board belonged to that church.
The names have been transcribed and linked to service records (where I have got to that section of the alphabet) on the Empire Called website.

As you can see there is nothing connecting the board to the Essendon Baptist Church, so do let me know if you think it belonged to another church.

Harold Brocklebank Herbert

Popping into the Royal Historical Society of Victoria  recently this book, Harold Herbert: Convivial Artist,  on the 'for sale' rack struck my eye, and seizing it to investigate further it turned out to be a brief biography of Harold Brocklebank Herbert by John C Trinca.  Herbert has been mentioned previously in this blog as the artist who designed the MMTB Roll of Honour.  The book has colour plates of a range of his watercolours, including some made during his sojourn in the Middle East as a War Artist in WW2.

Herbert had a range of interests outside his art, including membership of the Savage Club, and also the Cormorant Club, dedicated to preserving trout by eradication of Cormorants - though apparently Herbert seldom despatched a cormorant himself. 

A steal at only $10!

Before the Dawn - an Entirely Original Australian Comedy in Three Acts

In October 1916 a comedy in three acts, written and performed by Joseph (Jo) Smith, was put on at the Essendon Town Hall, Moonee Ponds, to raise funds for YMCA huts to serve the men on the front line.   A description of the play and the playwright can be found here, and a more complete version , with colour plates,  of the program, can be seen at the State Library of Victoria here.  There is apparently a copy of the play lodged for copyright purposes held by the National Archives of Australia.

Royal Australian Field Artillery Barracks, West's Road, Maribyrnong

This turned out to be more difficult to photograph than I envisaged.  The building is set back from West's Road.  Quite a few of the local volunteers were either stationed here with the Australian Field Artillery, or trained here after volunteering.   Built in 1911, it is on the Victorian Heritage Database.      A very interesting heritage study of the Maribyrnong Defence Industries sites can be downloaded in pdf format from here.

Caring for your wartime memorabilia

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a very useful looking online book about caring for wartime memorabilia.

Printed copies are available, apparently, but it doesn't spell out whether there is a cost for that, or who is eligible to apply, but there's an email address for enquiries.