Newsletter No. 12 - Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage ...

A Springwood soldier laid to restat Fromelles 94 years laterPamela Smith and I attended thelaunch of Glenbrook HistoricalSociety’s Comrades in Arms whichwas composed of short biographiesof Glenbrook men who had servedin World War I.We were inspired to beginresearching and writing about themen who were listed on theSpringwood District World War IHonor Roll.by Shirley Evans, Springwood HistorianThis proved to be very much moredifficult than we had thought, but inthe five years it took to complete thetask we became very close to ourWorld War I veterans and mournedthose who had died in that dreadfulwar.In his introduction to our book,Remembrance: Springwood DistrictHonor Roll 1914-1919 John Lowwrote: “Their research has rescuedthe men recorded here from thecreeping anonymity that would havebeen their fate and given them backto their community as individualswho lived and breathed their ownspecial human uniqueness.”These men (and they were all men,no women) were certainly to adegree anonymous with the boardhung inconspicuously on a side wallin the Springwood Civic Centre, andwith many of the men proving quitedifficult to identify.A very few of them bore names werecognised from our research forThe Making of a MountainCommunity: a BiographicalDictionary of the SpringwoodDistrict, but quite a number wediscovered in the Nepean Timesreports of Springwood in the waryears.One of these names was Ed Hope(proved to be Edward James Hope),born and reared in Kingswood. Hewas employed by the railway as afettler at the time of his enlistmentand we found that his nameappeared on the St Mary’s Roll ofHonour in Victoria Park and also onthe Blue Mountains District WarMemorial Hospital, Katoomba.The last of the exhumed soldiers being carried to his last restingplace at Fromelles.In October, 1915 the Nepean Timesreported a farewell to new enlistees,J. Reddall and E. Hope. They wereboth presented with wristlet watchesfrom the Springwood people.Part way through our research theNational Archives of Australiadigitised the World War Iservicemen’s records making it verymuch easier and less expensive toaccess and check as they were nowavailable on the internet.Prior to that, we sometimes wastedtime and money purchasing recordsfor the wrong men. With only aninitial for the first name shown onthe honour roll it was easy to makea mistake.Private Edward HopeEdward was one of 17 railwayemployees on the Springwood Roll(by far the largest occupationgroup) and, as a fettler, he musthave worked in various parts of theBlue Mountains.He was born in Kingswood in 1887and was orphaned in 1898 when hismother, father and infant sister alldied within a few months of oneanother.A young sister, Florence, and hewere presumably cared for byrelatives. He named Florence ashis next of kin when he enlisted.Edward was allotted to the 54 thBattalion which was predominantlycomposed of men from NSW. Halfof them were Gallipoli veterans .The new recruits left Australia onthe Aeneas on December 20, 1915joining the rest of the battalion atTel-El-Kebir for training on February16, 1916.They embarked on the Caledonianfor Marseilles in June, fighting theirfirst major battle on July 19, 1916 atFromelles. They suffered casualtiesequivalent to 65 per cent of thebattalion’s fighting strength. It washere that Edward died either on the19 th or 20 th . 1,547 British and 5,533Australians were either killed,wounded, taken prisoner orreported missing. This wasAustralia’s bloodiest day in militaryhistory. Continued page 9HERITAGE 8November - December 2010