Leo Pathe with the 3 Light Horse Brigade

Leo Pathe, a young coppersmith from Glass Street, Essendon enlisted on 9 September 1914 and was assigned to the 3rd Light Horse Brigade, then in camp at Broadmeadows.  Greg Milne tells Leo's story.

Researching your Australian WW1 relatives

Photographic Records and Classification Subsection of the Australian War Records Section, June 1919, London

To be presented by Lenore Frost.  This talk will give you an expert overview of resources held at the RHSV and elsewhere to help you research your WW1 relatives.  Participants will gain insights and techniques at finding information and evidence of WW1 servicemen and women.

At the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A Beckett St, Melbourne 

2 pm on Wednesday 22 October.  

Members Free, Non members $10.

Bookings essential on 9326 9288  or email office@historyvictoria.org.au  

9326 9288  or email office@historyvictoria.org.au

To be presented by Lenore Frost.  This talk will give you an expert overview of resources held at the RHSV and elsewhere to help you research your WW1 relatives.  Participants will gain insights and techniques at finding information and evidence of WW1 servicemen and women. - See more at: http://www.historyvictoria.org.au/events/researching-your-world-war-1-australian-relatives#sthash.hpu3BTS7.dpuf

To be presented by Lenore Frost.  This talk will give you an expert overview of resources held at the RHSV and elsewhere to help you research your WW1 relatives.  Participants will gain insights and techniques at finding information and evidence of WW1 servicemen and women. - See more at: http://www.historyvictoria.org.au/events/researching-your-world-war-1-australian-relatives#sthash.hpu3BTS7.dpuf

Departure of the first Victorian convoy, 1914

Infantry boarding the Hororata  at Prince's Pier, October 1914.

Tomorrow, 19 October 2014, is the centenary of the day that the first troops from Essendon and Flemington of the 6th and 7th Battalions departed Port Melbourne  on the Hororata to join the first convoy assembling in Albany, WA.    It was one of 17 troop ships that left Victoria in october 1914.

A commemoration will be held tomorrow at Prince's Pier.  You can see the program, which commences at 4 pm,  at the Anzac Commemoration website.

Stories from the Supreme Court of Victoria Memorial Board

In the entrance to the Supreme Court in William Street Melbourne, there is a memorial board commemorating 158 lawyers and solicitors who served in the Great War.  In a commemorative project, the stories of those men have been put together in an online memorial.  The names are from right round Victoria as well as metropolitan Melbourne.  It includes, for instance,  Hugh Gordon Morrow of Ballarat and an old school friend Lt Col Harold  E Elliott.

Not many Essendonians are included, but one local on the board is  William Thomas Snowden.

There are many well-known names on the board, and a browse through them may be rewarding.

Sgt James Grant Anderson's war

Driver Rupert Clive Jones, left, and Lance Corporal James Grant Anderson at the Alexandria Military Cemetery,  c 1915.

James Grant Anderson, on the right, a farmer of Essendon and Keilor, married Elsie Dixon in October 1913.  In September 1914 James stepped forward to do what he considered to be his duty as a citizen, and in October 1914 he left his expectant bride to do his earnest best in service of the Empire for the next four years.

Lovingly kept in the family, Jim's photos, letters, telegrams and souvenirs tell the story of his service, of his eventual longing to be home, and his attempts to be a father to the daughter he had yet to meet.   Three of Jim's brothers were also on active service.  Gordon Anderson's photo albums were posted about a few weeks ago.

Lance Sergeant Fish, 2nd Field Ambulance

Souvenir in the Australian War Memorial Collection REL31249

This souvenir was carried by one of three people, brothers Lance Sergeant George Melrose and Private Charles Vivian Fish or their brother-in-law Private Walter Harold Brentnall. All three, from Melbourne, Victoria, served in 2 Field Ambulance, AIF. Brentnall returned to Australia in 1917 after he was wounded. The brothers, however, both died of wounds, George on 24 July 1916 and Charles on 17 April 1918. Their effects were sent home to their family. .... it is thought that this matchbox may have been picked up on Gallipoli and filled with pebbles and a shell from Anzac Cove......(Australian War Memorial)

Pte Charles Fish's personal effects were lost in the sinking of the Barunga while being returned to Australia.  Brentnall served on Gallipoli, and George Fish on Lemnos. This and other mementos were together with an identity disc belonging to G M Fish, and may well have been shells and stones George picked up at Lemnos.

George had been a 23 year old salesmen living in Mackay St, Essendon, when he enlisted in 1914.

Rod Martin brings us George Fish's story.

RSL Virtual War Memorial

Here's an interesting new website from the South Australian Branch of the RSL. 

http://www.rslvirtualwarmemorial.org.au/

Amongst other features is what appears to be nominal rolls for the different battalions (not only South Australian), for instance here is  one for the previously mentioned 58th Infantry Battalion:

http://www.rslvirtualwarmemorial.org.au/explore/units/216/people

The list does not include the men who transferred in from the 6th Inf Bn, because it would take too long to go through individual files to work out who transferred.   It would have been compiled from Embarkation Nominal Rolls.


You can also search for individuals, and upload details of your relatives.