Newsletter No - Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage ...

The Harold Kenneth
Campbell
monument
MOST PEOPLE who have driven along Great Western
Highway on the west side of Blaxland will have noticed a
vault like monument on a narrow strip of grassed land
between the highway and Wilson Way.
Some may even have taken the trouble to visit the site to
discover that it is a memorial to an individual soldier, one
of the 61,513 Australian soldiers of the 1 st AIF who lost
their lives in the ‘war to end all wars’, the Great War
later to become known as the First World War
The monument is a memorial to Harold Kenneth
Campbell, who aged 19 years and 5 months, enlisted in
the Australian Imperial Force on June 29, 1915.
His parents gave their written
consent saying he had “been raised
to fight for his King & Country”.
His father, James Spink Campbell,
of “Beverley”, Blaxland, was named
as next of kin. Harold’s occupation
was poultry farmer and James was
a civil servant.
Harold fought at Pozieres as a
private in the 3 rd Battalion,
sustained gunshot wounds to his
knee and leg and died as a result of
his wounds in the General Hospital,
Rouen, on August 2, 1916. He is
buried at St Sever Cemetery,
Rouen.
On October 22, 1916 the Blaxland
Progress Association requested
permission to erect a Soldier’s
Memorial at the intersection of
Railway Parade and Station Street,
opposite the station in full view of
passengers in passing trains.
Permission was granted. It was to
be a stone or granite pedestal with
a machine gun mounted on top.
The monument was unveiled in
1925 with about 200 people
assembled.
Councillor Wilson made a speech in
which he said that it would “stand
for ever as a beacon for the boys of
the future to do their duty as the
fallen hero had done his”.
The machine gun was one of a
number of German guns seized in
France. The monument was
unveiled by Major General Sir
Charles Rosenthal, a local highly
decorated soldier.
Councillor Wilson took the
opportunity to collect donations to
finish paying for the cost of the
memorial.
In 1928 the Great Western Highway
on the south side of the railway
station was proclaimed as a main
road and superseded Mitchell’s
Pass as the main western road.
Consequently, it was decided to
move the monument to Blaxland
Park, a small park opposite
Blaxland Public School.
In 1926 the Wilson Way over bridge
intercepted the highway in line with
Bridge Street but in the 1980s,
when the highway was widened, it
was altered to the present
alignment.
This alienated the triangle piece of
land where the monument now
stands. The monument which has
only been moved once retained its
original fence until 1958
In 2001 the Blue Mountains City
Council requested and received
permission from the Minister for
Land and Water Conservation to
rename the park the Blaxland War
Memorial Park.
Barbara Higginson had lobbied for
this renaming and had been
supported by the Blaxland and
District Chamber of Commerce &
Industry Inc who commented: “The
war memorial is a significant part of
the history of Blaxland and the
Chamber of Commerce is mindful of
the importance of the memorial and
the park to the township and the
residents.”.
Over the years the plaque(s) and
the gun on the monument have
disappeared and the Blaxland –
Glenbrook RSL Sub Branch who
have assumed a de facto ownership
of it have, with the help of the Blue
Mountains City Council, organised
restoration and refurbishment,
replacing the plaque and repairing
the little fence at the base.
CAMPBELL FAMILY
BACKGROUND
It was quite unusual for a World
War I memorial to be erected for a
single fallen soldier. Honour boards
and monuments in the Blue
Mountains were erected in memory
of numbers of men (and a few
women).
Perhaps Harold was the only
Blaxland man who enlisted. Four
other men, born in Blaxland, were
located in the World War I Nominal
Roll; two enlisting in Cootamundra,
one in Lithgow and one in Sydney,
but nothing further is known about
them.
Blaxland was a very small township
and Harold would have been quite
well known locally.
His parents, James and Edith, and
sister, Edith, lived in a house called
“Beverley” which was situated
where the Blaxland Arcade is now
located. The house was named
after James’ family home or rather
property in Boorowa, NSW.
Continued page 23
HERITAGE 22
November - December 2012