This photo is really about Charles Robert White - always known as 'Boy" - the young man in the centre of the back row, wearing the uniform of the Australian World War 1 soldier.
It was taken in Lismore, NSW, in September 1918. Boy was home from Enoggera Army Training Camp on pre-embarkation leave. All the family has come together to say goodbye to him. They are his parents, Robert and Elizabeth, his 15 year old brother George, and his sisters Alice, Violet and Nellie (standing) and Eliza (known as "Weenie") and Mabel ("Sis") in front. ( You can tell that this family had a penchant for nicknames).
Boy joined the Army in August 1918. He was 20. My guess is that his father had probably withheld permission until then, and it's also possible that he had to finish his apprenticeship as a fitter with the NSW Government Railways. He was quickly passed fit and sent for training, and then joined up with the 8th Queensland Reinforcements. On 28 September, he was granted leave to come home, and then on 7 November 1918, he set off to war on the SS Carpentaria.
Of course, the armistice was declared on 11 November 1918. The Carpentaria, at sea for only four days, berthed in Fremantle, WA and the soldiers were transferred to the SS Riverina, a small coastal ship, and returned to Sydney on 28 November. By 28 December, Boy had been discharged, and was back in Lismore. His war had lasted just five months, and he had seen none of it, but he was nevertheless awarded the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and the 1914-15 Star.
Boy left Lismore for Newcastle in the early ‘20’s after marrying a local girl, Ida Elizabeth Staff, who had lost her fiancé in the War. They were to have two children together, Vivienne and Douglas.
I’m not sure what he did in Newcastle, but I know that he had been a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union for 24 years when he stood for pre-election to the Senate in the 1940 Federal election. Like all his family, he was a good Labor man - he ran for what was then the Industrial Labor Party, a breakaway from the ALP which had been created by a disgruntled Bob Heffron. ( The split didn’t last long and Heffron rejoined the Party, eventually becoming Premier of NSW)
The other strong family connection was with the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. This organization, founded in Manchester, England, was a non- political, non-sectarian, not-for-profit mutual society formed to protect and care for its members in the days before the welfare state and Medicare. It was very strong in Australia in the early 20th Century, and Boy’s father Robert was a prominent member, who became a Grand Master and had a Lodge ( the Loyal Robert White Lodge) named after him in Lismore.
Boy became a Grand Master in Newcastle in 1946. The newspaper report *describes him as having been a member since 1914.
Ida died in 1959, and the following year Boy married a widow, Grace Dorman. They retired to the Gold Coast where he died in 1977.
* Newcastle Herald 24 Oct 1946
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