Maggie Patton gave us a look at some of the original WWI materials held by the State Library of NSW last Friday. As a collection it’s historic in its own right; the Library was collecting letters and diaries of Australian soldiers even before the armistice went into effect on 11 November 1918.
This photograph is just one of the thousands of photographs of Australian and other allied soldiers taken during World War I that have been discovered in France, in a find hailed as “wonderful and thrilling” by military historians.
It was a pleasure to meet with author and historian George Franki on Friday. I am reading his book on Australia’s most decorated soldier Mad Harry published in 2003 but more recently he has produced a fine work remembering Mosman’s dead in the Great War.
At the outbreak of war, residents threw themselves – says “Jack” Carroll – “into whatever way they were best able to do their share.”
Some 1,140 of the younger residents voluntarily enlisted for Service overseas. The Mosman Red Cross was outstanding, so much so that their leader was honoured with an M.B.E. decoration. So too, was Mrs. Bennett White (Meta Hayter), organiser of a Concert Troupe of young girls to be known as “The Cheer-ohs”. This band of versatile entertainers in the four years of War and eight years afterwards, raised no less than a sum of £55,000 for the various patriotic and repatriation funds…
An article from New Zealand newspaper The Feilding Star, 17 September 1917. A remarkable story, but also a reminder that the excellent resources of New Zealand’s cultural institutions can be just as useful for researching Australian service men and women. This story, for example, does not appear to be archived in Trove.