The notebooks, diaries and folders created by Charles Bean during and after the First World War have immense historic value and are considered to be one of the most significant records created by a single Australian. The collection includes 286 volumes of diaries and historical notebooks recorded by Bean at the time and often at the front line. The diaries are firsthand accounts of the war and offer a unique perspective due to Bean’s status as official correspondent. read on

The notebooks and diaries of C.E.W. Bean provide valuable insight into the last days of the First World War. Bean was Australia’s sole official correspondent and he worked assiduously throughout the four years of the war recording events, often from the front line.

Charles Bean was staying in Lille, France during November, 1918. He was an experienced investigator and interviewer and his diaries of the weeks before Armistice detail the emotions and concerns of those who knew the war was coming to an end. Bean, who generally had access to all levels of command, writes of conversations with Generals John Monash and William Birdwood and discusses the opinions of members of the international press and political leaders including Australia’s Prime Minister Billy Hughes on the peace process. Bean spent much of his time throughout the war interviewing Australian soldiers and recording their stories. During the last months of the war he takes the time to observe and record the feelings of average French civilians noting their opinions and feelings towards Germany.

The weeks leading up to Armistice are described by Bean in his diary as subdued. He wrote “I think it is the dead who rise up between the survivors” that prevents “any sort of Bacchanalian rejoicing”. Journalists and those in command that Bean talked to were initially sceptical about Germany’s intentions. After the Kaiser and his son had abdicated and fled on the 10 November, scepticism turned to a concern about what position Germany would be in to negotiate peace and who was in command. He noted conversations that he had with military commanders, politicians and journalists and recorded their concerns about the potential break up of Germany. Many feared that the country would slide into Bolshevism. Bean wrote that if Germany split there may not be money to compensate Belgium and France. By November Bean did not support the demands on Germany strongly expressed by Billy Hughes. Australia’s Prime Minister was in France lobbying through the press and political channels for extensive reparations for all the Allied countries including Australia. Bean described the speech that Hughes gave to the French War Cabinet as unrealistic.   read on

The Western Front was epitomised by the brute force of men against machine and each other. Tens of thousands were lost in the maelstrom of war. In the horror, friendships were forged that endured even through death. This is the story of one such friendship…

Wally Brown was a grocer. He did not necessarily want to be a grocer but neither did he want to follow in the footsteps of his father as a miller. The small Tasmanian community of New Norfolk, into which he was born in 1885, was a progressive ‘postal, telegraphic and money order township’. The town boasted the New Norfolk Literary Institution complete with a library of some 1200 volumes and a ‘very fine and well built lunatic asylum’. Progressive it might have been, but at 26 years of age Brown had itchy feet. In 1911 he left New Norfolk for the bustling lifestyle of Petersham in Sydney.

Walter 'Wally' Brown ART09490

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Phoebe Chapple (1879-1967) Image courtesy of the State Library of South Australia. B 25677/34

Phoebe Chapple was always going to be someone special. She grew up in a family of high achievers. Apart from her father, Frederic Chapple, who was headmaster at Prince Alfred College Adelaide, five of her seven siblings held university degrees: Alfred a lecturer in engineering at St John’s University Cambridge; Ernest, another Cambridge graduate at Jesus University and president of the Fresher Debating Society before taking up a position in Rangoon, Burma; Harold a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital in London; Marian an arts graduate from the University of Adelaide; and Fred, another doctor. However, Phoebe stood apart even in such accomplished company.

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What do a concert pianist, an Indian bandmaster and an Australian militia bandmaster have in common? Each of these individuals composed a march that would eventually be adopted as the regimental march of an Australian Imperial Force infantry battalion during the First World War. Many were popular songs of the period.

The 23^rd Battalion March was composed during the First World War by Miss Una Bourne at the request of Mrs Doris Carter. Una Bourne was a concert pianist and composer who toured as an associate artist with Dame Nellie Melba during her Australian visits. Una remained in England during the war years and performed for hospitals and the Red Cross.

23rd Battalion March

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When Leonard Walter Jackson of Neutral Bay joined the AIF on the 6th of August 1915, he must have been one of the youngest Australians ever to enlist in our military services. Using the assumed name Richard Walter Mayhew, and claiming to be an 18 year old orphan, young Leonard, who was born on 27th August 1901, was actually 13 years 11 months and 10 days old on the day he “signed up”.

Len’s older brother, Harry Melville Jackson, had enlisted in the AIF in January 1915 and another brother, Dudley Jackson, also joined up in August 1915. When their father Joseph, a veteran of the Sudan campaign of 1885, realised what his 13 year old son had done, he took the unusual step of enlisting himself, to follow his young tear-away to Egypt and keep a watchful eye on him. Joseph, not surprisingly, also had to lie about his age – he claimed to be 44 years and 11 months old, when he was actually 52!

When the eldest of the Jackson boys, Harry, died whilst a prisoner of the Germans in August 1916, from wounds received at Pozieres, Joseph admitted to the military authorities that he was overage for active service, and that his son Leonard was serving without his parents’ permission and was underage. (By this time, father and son had been serving side by side in the 55th Infantry Battalion since early 1916). To quote a letter written by Dudley Jackson MM in 1964, “[When my father] heard of my elder brother’s death…he decided in fairness to my mother to go back to Australia.” Both Joseph and Leonard were discharged, and returned to Australia aboard HMAT Ulysses in March 1917.

On 4th March 1918, ‘Richard Walter Mayhew’ again enlisted in the AIF, this time claiming his age was 21 years 3 months. A photograph of ‘Richard’ is held by the State Library of NSW.
Private records held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection which were used to uncover the story of Leonard Walter Jackson, include 1DRL/0379 and 3DRL/3846. Relevant service records can be found online through the National Archives of Australia.

As with other special occasions such as Christmas and birthdays, having to spend Valentine’s Day apart from loved ones would have been sad and distressing for many serving men and women, and for those at home eagerly awaiting the safe return of their sweethearts and friends.

Fortunately, there is little that can stand in the way of love and many people overcame distance and time to send messages of love and admiration, not only for Valentine’s Day, but throughout the course of wartime.

Postcards were an easy method of expressing such thoughts and feelings. Popular at any time, a variety of designs have been created since their invention in order to send that special message to that special someone.

Many Australian servicemen and women were able to take advantage of this market, particularly during the First World War, and some very interesting examples are held in the Australian War Memorial’s collection.

RC08136 Love Ration Card

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In the Research Centre, we receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to know how and where their relatives died in the First World War. Finding out this information can be a difficult task. Quite often families know no more than that their relative died on a particular date in a particular country, and they’d like to know if we can help them narrow that down.

With the advent of the Internet and the progress of digitisation programs at the Memorial and the National Archives of Australia, more and more material relating to the First World War is becoming available online. First World War service records, an increasing number of unit war diaries, and the Official History edited by Charles Bean are now available to anyone with an Internet connection.

With such a variety of sources, it can be hard to know quite where to start. Say, for example, that we wanted to find out about the death of Private Clifford Davies Williams, who died on 1 October, 1917. What would our first step be?

The Memorial’s Roll of Honour provides a good starting point. It typically gives information about where an individual was from, when they were killed, what unit they served with, and where they are buried or commemorated. It also shows where the individual is commemorated on the Memorial’s physical Roll of Honour, for those who wish to visit the Memorial to pay their respects.

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Embroidered silk postcards were first made in 1900 with popularity peaking during the First World War. Cards were generally embroidered on strips of silk mesh by French women. They were then cut and mounted on postcards.

Since the completion of a project to get the silk postcard images (all 700+) onto the database, I have been interested in seeing how well the process could be replicated. Having some experience in cross-stitch, I decided to have a go at creating a pattern from the database image, embroidering it and mounting it. First step was deciding on a design (feeling quite patriotic after the Olympics I chose one of the Australian ones):

Original Silk Postcard SC00186

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What does a twenty-three year old wag of a soldier say in his defence, when facing yet another court martial for going AWOL during the First World War? 

If you’re Private Albert Stipek, the words come easily: “I met some friends and went away with them. I had no idea the Battalion was going to the Line. I thought it was going out for a spell”.  Nevertheless, he had absented himself from the 51st Battalion for nearly two months.

We can only imagine his tongue was firmly in his cheek.  By the date of this hearing, 2 July 1918, Stipek had survived the first landing at Gallipoli with the 12th Battalion, and the battles at Mouquet Farm, Dernancourt and Villers-Bretonneux with the 52nd Battalion.

He had also been fined for being drunk on 2pm parade, gone missing in action for five days following the battle at Mouquet Farm, was admitted to hospital on three different occasions, court martialled for going AWOL and missing his return to the front line in France, and arrested for escaping confinement. 

Following this latest court martial, Private Stipek once again escaped confinement and went AWOL for eight months.  A series of charges, detentions and confinements followed, until he was returned to Australia in March 1920 to serve the rest of his final sentence.  Although his sister was notified of his return, his extended family, in due course, came to believe he died in the War. 

Private Stipek’s incredible service record has been digitised and is available for viewing on the National Archives of Australia RecordSearch database.   Four court martial records are also on RecordSearch, but have yet to be digitised.

There is no doubt Private Stipek was a colourful character, but perhaps it was the trauma of fighting for his life in several major battles which expressed itself as the desperate need to escape military service.

Further information:
First World War Australian Army War Diaries
First World War Official Histories

With thanks to Annette Gaykema for her research and interest in Private Stipek.