Blog

Making a Silk Postcard

03 September 2008 by Annette Gaykema. 5 Comments
Collection,From the collection, Ephemera, First World War, How To...

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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Going out for a spell…

21 August 2008 by Ann Penhallow. No comments
Family history,Personal Stories, First World War, Official records

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.

Charging Home

19 August 2008 by Ann Penhallow. 4 Comments
Collection,From the collection, Animals in war, First World War, Official records

This week the Research Centre received a call from a fan of Sandy, Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges’ favourite charger.  November this year sees the 90th anniversary of Sandy’s return to Australia, after a tour of duty which included the coast of Gallipoli, Egypt and France.  Sandy’s fan wished to confirm the information the Research Centre has about this much-loved animal in preparation for a ceremony to mark the anniversary.

Although General Bridges had the use of three horses, Sandy was believed to be his favourite.  This impressive portrait in the Memorial’s photographs collection clearly acknowledges the General’s feelings, as he allows his charger’s head to obscure his own!

 

Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges holding the bridle of his favourite charger, Sandy. P05290.001

General Bridges died in May 1915 from a wound sustained at Gallipoli and Sandy, who was presumed to be offshore at the time, was eventually shipped back to Egypt.  Nearly a year later he was transported to France.

In October 1917, the Minister for Defence, Senator George Pearce, called for Sandy to be returned to Australia.  Copies of the ensuing letters, cables, minutes and memos between the organising parties comprise an official record held in the Memorial archives.  This record AWM13 7026/2/31 can be viewed in the Memorial’s Research Centre Reading Room.

Sandy sailed from Liverpool in September 1918, arriving in Melbourne in November.  As the official record says, he was “pensioned off”, or turned out to graze at the Central Remount Depot in Maribyrnong.  Blind and unwell, Sandy was put down in 1923.

Sandy’s claim to fame is not just as the favourite horse of General Bridges, but that, of 136,000 Australian horses sent away to the First World War, Sandy was the sole horse brought back.

Information resources about Sandy:

Australian War Memorial Encyclopedia

Australian War Memorial Collection Databases

Coulthard-Clark, Chris “One came home” Wartime: official magazine of the Australian War Memorial 19 (2002):37-39.

National Archives of Australia Recordsearch
AWM13 7026/2/31

Olympian digger

08 August 2008 by Kerrie Leech. 5 Comments
Collection,From the collection,Personal Stories, First World War, Private Records

Studio portrait of Tom Richards in 1917 (from Gold, mud 'n' guts by Greg Growden).

With Olympics fever upon us, I was prompted to look through the Memorial’s collection to see what material we held on Olympians.  One collection in the Private Records area caught my eye.  It was created by Lieutenant Thomas James Richards, MC who won a gold medal for rugby at the 1908 London Olympics.  Before joining the Army, Richards played rugby first in Queensland, then in South Africa and England.  read on

Trench Mortar

01 April 2008 by Dianne Rutherford. No comments
Collection,From the collection, First World War, Technology

On display in the Memorial’s First World War Gallery is this damaged trench mortar barrel. The explosion that damaged this Stokes 3″ trench mortar barrel in 1918 also sadly killed two young men from the 6th Australian Light Trench Mortar Battery.

3″ Stokes Trench Mortar barrel, damaged by a prematurely exploding bomb, 14 June 1918 RELAWM00768

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Second Lieutenant F. T. D. Gulley, No. 6 (Training) Squadron, AFC

17 March 2008 by Amanda Rebbeck. 2 Comments
Aircraft 1914 - 1918,Collection,Personal Stories, First World War, Heraldry, Private Records, Training

Crashes and fires were everyday hazards for the First World War flier. Second Lieutenant Frederick Gulley suffered both when trying to land his aircraft in England on 17 October 1918. Gulley was on a cross country flight and struck a post whilst attempting to land in a field close to Tidworth Barracks, Wiltshire. In the resulting fire Gulley’s clothes, harness, face and hands were burnt. He was taken to Tidworth Hospital with superficial burns to his face, neck and both hands, including all fingers. 

A piece of Second Lieutenant Gulley’s seat harness after his aircraft crashed in England on 17 October 1918. NB the burn marks from the fire are still visible. REL/15078

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How an overnight storm threw up a relic of our first VC winner

05 March 2008 by Craig Berelle. No comments
Collection,From the collection,Personal Stories, First World War

It was 10 March 1919, and readers of the London Daily Mail were asked to help solve a wartime puzzle.

Appearing on page three, the appeal read “A newspaper correspondent, who has sent his address to the Editor of the Daily Mail, seeks a claimant for a Red Cross armlet, which he says he found in November 1915 on beach at ANZAC Bay, and which is marked: R. Howse, Col. : A.D.M.S., Australian Division.”

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No wedding glamour for Clarice

19 February 2008 by Janette Condon. No comments
Collection,From the collection,Personal Stories, First World War

Mention is sometimes made of personal events in the war diaries of the first Australian Imperial Force (AIF), currently being digitised by the Research Centre. Of all the activities of members of the First Light Horse Brigade at Gallipoli, one of the more unusual was the wedding of Sergeant Ernest Alfred Lawrence to his bride Clarice Jessie Daley on 21 October 1915 on the Greek island of Lemnos.

Clarice and Ernest leaving the tent in which they were married through an arch of drawn bayonets. P01360.001

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