Issue 54 Aurora Magazine January 2023

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eflect SGT JOHN WILLIAM PITTENDRIGH Sad End to an Adventurous Life STORY ANNE SKINNER High in the tea-growing hills of north-eastern India, the volunteers of the Assam Valley Light Horse met regularly for training, target practice and drills. The regiment had been raised to protect the British Raj against attacks from rebel frontier tribesmen and most of the volunteers were drawn from the community of British tea planters in the province of Assam – still the world’s largest producer of quality tea. Among their number was young Welsh-born engineer John William Pittendrigh. Bill, as he was to be known later to his 11 th Battalion comrades, had moved to India sometime after the 1898 death of his father, while his mother Rose moved to another British Empire possession, Ceylon. Bill Pittendrigh was born in the Welsh capital, Cardiff, in September 1884 to a Scottish father and a Welsh mother. His father, John Kay Pittendrigh, had travelled the world as the first officer on merchant vessels, often to Australia. When he met Rose Arlington in Cardiff, he gave up the sea and within a few years left Wales to take his wife and baby son back to Scotland. When he left school, Bill became apprenticed to an Edinburgh iron foundry, John Greig and Son. After a few years manufacturing printing machines, the firm’s speciality, he may have begun to dream of travel and adventure beyond the shores of Britain. In the early years of the 20 th century, few places were as exoticsounding as India and the British newspapers were filled with advertisements and articles enticing young men with promises of riches and a privileged, expatriate lifestyle. So it was that Bill Pittendrigh ended up on the north-east frontier of the land known as the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. The Assam Valley Light Horse was formed as an auxiliary regiment to the British Army in India. While the corps appears not to have taken part in any action before 1911, Bill gained valuable weapons training which was to stand him in good stead only a few years later. Whether the attractions of the tea-planting life were never realised, or he grew restless and remembered tales spun by his seafaring father about the Land Down Under, Bill spent only a few years in India before launching himself into another adventure in early 1911 – this time to Australia. He visited his mother in Colombo and left from there on the Fremantle-bound SS Malwa. About a year later, while working in Albany – as he later told Army hospital doctors in Egypt – he suffered the first painful, debilitating attack of what he thought at the time was colic. When Germany invaded Belgium on 4 August 1914, Britain and Australia immediately declared war and recruitment began across the British Empire. Bill Pittendrigh, aged LEFT: John William “Bill” Pittendrigh was among the first Albany volunteers in 1914. (Courtesy Norman Dowie). BELOW: Looking down a hill to Anzac Cove the day after the original landing. The 11th Battalion was in the vanguard of the landing in the early hours of 25 April 1915. Sometime in the hours that followed, Cpl Pittendrigh was wounded. (Courtesy Australian War Memorial H1<strong>54</strong>73) BOTTOM: Soldiers erect tents at Blackboy Hill training camp in 1914. (Courtesy Australian War Memorial H16151) 20 LOVE LOCAL
eflect 30, lined up for his medical in Albany just 12 days later. Sent with other Albany men to Blackboy Hill training camp, he was drafted into the newly-raised 11 th Battalion. Thanks to his previous military and weapons experience, Bill was immediately promoted to a Corporal in the battalion’s armoury. After a few months of basic training, 900 Cpl John William Pittendrigh and his 11 th Battalion comrades embarked from Fremantle aboard the troopship Ascanius. The next scheduled stop was the port of Colombo and there is little doubt Bill would have hoped to be reunited with his mother, however briefly. He was to be disappointed. The vast convoy of vessels carrying the Australian and New Zealand volunteers arrived off Colombo on the afternoon of 15 November and lay there for the next two days, taking turns to be loaded with coal – but no-one was allowed ashore. Early on 5 December the Ascanius arrived at the Egyptian port of Alexandria. Again, no shore leave was granted, but it is on record that at least 1800 of the 2000 men on board cleared off to explore the town. It is likely that the adventurous Bill Pittendrigh was among them, eager to see yet another new land. Astonishingly, according to Captain Walter Belford, who published the 11 th Battalion history Legs-Eleven in 1940, most of the men were at roll-call the next morning! After further training in Egypt and on the Greek island of Lemnos, the ANZACS, as the Australian and New Zealand volunteers were now known, landed at Gallipoli early on 25 April, 1915. Within hours of the landing, Cpl Pittendrigh was wounded in the left hand and evacuated to No 2 Australian General Hospital at Mena House in Cairo. While recovering from the gunshot wound, his old colic problem resurfaced. The doctors determined it was acute choleocystitis, or inflamed gall bladder. When the pain abated, he was discharged from hospital to take up duties as the Orderly Room Sergeant in the battalion’s Cairo base. A few months later, he was again admitted to hospital where he was diagnosed with cholelithiasis, or gallstones. The medical officer noted the condition was “constitutional (and) aggravated by active military service”. Sgt Pittendrigh was placed on a strict diet of “milk, porridge, custard, jelly, arrowroot, lemonade, tobacco”. The Medical Board noted he “….requires (an) operation, which he declines” and recommended “… discharge as permanently unfit, without pension”. Sgt Pittendrigh embarked aboard the homeward-bound Hospital Transport Karoola on 4 November and was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force in early 1916. His war over, he found work as a traveller in Perth. Later that year he returned to Colombo, in what is now Sri Lanka, to visit his mother. If left untreated, gallstones can be fatal. Perhaps Bill continued to refuse surgery, or perhaps he was the victim of an accident. The cause remains unknown, but in September 1916 a sad death notice appeared in the West Australian and the Western Mail: “On August 7, at Colombo, Ceylon, John W Pittendrigh, late Sergeant “A” Company, 11 th Battalion, and son of Mrs Pittendrigh, of Colombo”. fishing • camping • workwear Sources: Belford, Capt W: Legs-Eleven, being the story of the 11th Battalion AIF in the Great War; Australian War Memorial; National Archives of Australia; Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History (www.gracesguide.co.uk); Koi-Hai (www.koi-hai.com - history of Assam Valley Light Horse); West Australian; Sunday Times (Perth); Ancestry. ABOVE RIGHT: The luxury Mena House Hotel in Cairo was turned into a military hospital for the duration of the First World War. (Courtesy Australian War Memorial C00528). BELOW: The landing at Anzac Cove, 25 April 1915. (Courtesy Australian War Memorial P06092.001) Albany’s largest fishing, camping and lifestyle store. Stocking a huge amount of shoes, hats, backpacks, drink bottles, workwear, swimwear and clothing. We are a 100% locally owned and run family business. Open 6 days a week 184 Albany Hwy, Albany 9841 7859 trailblazers.com.au LOVE LOCAL 21
Page 1 and 2: FREE Aurora Issue 54 GREAT SOUTHERN
Page 3 and 4: contents 4 SPOTLIGHT ISI CAMPBELL D
Page 5 and 6: spotlight PHOTO: SERENA KIRBY had i
Page 7 and 8: Just a note to say THANK YOU histor
Page 9 and 10: focus REBECCA KIRKWOOD Leading the
Page 11 and 12: BROADER HORIZONS Chelsea McIntyre |
Page 13 and 14: taste we had talked about the Baros
Page 15 and 16: taste in that it can be drunk neat
Page 17 and 18: vogue BREEZE ATA WRIGHT | LOCATION
Page 19: vogue OPPOSITE PAGE CLOCKWISE FROM
Page 23 and 24: engage with very high needs, she co
Page 25 and 26: create thus allowing flexibility wh
Page 27 and 28: perform treat it as a privilege and
Page 29 and 30: what's on The Albany Art Group 61st
Page 31 and 32: Everything we put in the Gig Guide

Issue 54 Aurora Magazine January 2023

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