I began by thinking that the only military ancestors I could
think of were my grandmother’s brother Edward Morgan, killed on the Somme in
1916, his cousin Arthur Rudolph Fleming, also killed in France and Paul’s 3 x great
grandfather, William Johnson, a career soldier/blacksmith.
I have been surprised to discover many more.
Most of my discoveries have been ancestors who signed up as
volunteers in World Wars 1 and 11. For
young Australians WW1 initially presented as an opportunity for travel and
excitement – Australia had a population of only 4 million in 1914, yet 416,809
men enlisted to fight. This represented
a staggering 38.7% of the male population aged between 18-44. Films such as “Gallipoli” tell the story of this
excitement and of the dawning horror of what these young men had signed up
for. By the end, when the Armistice was
reached in 1918, Australia had made the greatest sacrifice per capita of any
Allied nation, and the country was to spend years recovering.
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| Edward George Morgan |
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| Arthur Rudolph Fleming |
Amongst these young men were several from both sides of my
family tree. There was my father’s
cousin George William Leicester (Les) White.
Wounded in Egypt, he nevertheless went back and managed to survive. Dad’s uncle by marriage, John Victor Lehman
(married to Nellie White) was also a returned soldier from WW1. He seems to have suffered from PTSD for ever
after, and took his own life in 1943 after taking a shot at his daughter’s
boyfriend. Dad’s uncle Michael Gleeson
had a very short war, being invalided out in 1917 after a tour of duty in
France. He too seems to have been marked
for life, becoming a lifelong alcoholic who committed a string of petty crimes
while under the influence.
From my mother’s family went Roy Stretton, a cousin of her
father’s, who also fought in France. The wonderfully named Power Goulburn
Morgan (known as Pat) was the son of Josephine’s uncle John Morgan. His family had emigrated to New Zealand after
his birth (in the NSW town of Goulburn) and he enlisted with the NZ Army in
1916. We know from his service record
that he was a driver based in Louvencourt (in Picardie, not far from Peronne). In 1918 he had an accident with the horse he
was riding and broke his arm – this seems to have been his only war
injury. After the war he returned to NZ,
married and lived out his life in Auckland until his death in 1978.
In Paul’s extended family of McCanns, Roberts and Johnsons
there were at least 8 volunteers, including three from the one family. Robert
and Val McGuire both went to Gallipoli with the 15th Battalion, and their brother Charles was
wounded in France. William Samin and his
brother Frederick both fought at Amiens. Reg Johnson joined up aged 19 in 1917 and was
sent straight to France but appears to have been there only a few months before
he was invalided out to England. By the
time he recovered, the war was over.
Great uncle Herb McCann was a member of the 11th Australian Light Horse. His brigade was in Palestine and took part in
the famous Beersheeba Charge.
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| Herb McCann |
All of these men came home and went back to their lives –
mostly as small farmers – married and had families. Typically, they never spoke about their war
experiences.
William Johnson was a career soldier; a sergeant blacksmith. Born in Essex, England, he appears to have
joined up early to the 57th Regiment, known as the Royal Staff Corps
Mounted and Dismounted Regiments. Royal Staff
Corps were a separate body under command of the Horse Guards (ie the
Army). They were under command of the Board of Ordnance (Royal Artillery
and Engineers).
The official dividing line was that the RSC did the
temporary field works and the Engineers did the more permanent things.
The RSC usually did bridging, while the RE did sieges and permanent
fortifications. In about 1830, the RSC was disbanded and amalgamated with the Royal Engineers.
In 1821,
William was with his regiment in Barbados, then under British rule. There he married a local woman called Martha
Donovan (who had already been married and had two children to Samuel Donovan).
William
and Martha had a son (William Joseph) in Barbados, but by 1826 the Regiment had
moved to Australia, and not long after
this, William appears to have left the army.
He and his wife had six more children and it was his daughter Mary who
married the first Charles McCann.
Charles was a wheelwright, and it seems as if the two men worked together
later on the goldfields around Ballarat and Bullarook to make “McCann Wagons”. We aren’t sure what they were used for but
guess that they were used for carting large supplies such as timber to the
goldfields.
After
Eureka, William, Martha and all of the children moved away from the goldfields
to the rich lode of the cedar forests in the far north coast of NSW where both
timber felling and transport (including buses and taxis) sustained several of
the next generations. He died at the age
of 70 and is buried in the Ballina Pioneer cemetery, now a park on the banks of
the Richmond River.
Such dashing hats they had. I like the one with the plume.
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