Studio portrait of 6679 Pte George Wollaston Jacob, 50th Battalion from Kensington Gardens, South ...

Studio portrait of 6679 Pte George Wollaston Jacob, 50th Battalion from Kensington Gardens, South Australia. A 22 year old clerk prior to enlisting for the first time on 28 December 1914 with service number 870, he embarked for overseas with the 4th Reinforcements of the 3rd Light Horse Regiment from Adelaide on 1 April 1915 aboard HMAT Port Lincoln. After serving for eighteen months on Gallipoli and in Egypt, in June 1916 he was quarantined for smallpox. On 17 August 1916 he was discharged and returned to Australia at his mother's request on the sudden death of his father, as his two brothers were also serving with the AIF. He re-enlisted on 2 January 1917 and embarked for overseas with the 19th Reinforcements of the 27th Battalion from Adelaide on 24th January 1917 aboard HMAT Miltiades. Following further training in England, he joined the 50th Battalion in Belgium on 17 August 1917. Pte Jacob was killed in action at Polygon Wood on 25 September 1917 and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium with others who have no known grave. His brother, 1694 Pte John Gilbert Jacob, also in the 50th Battalion, was killed in action at Hamel on 7 July 1918 and buried in the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, France. Another brother, Second Lieutenant Denis Courtauld Jacob, 10th Battalion, was awarded the Military Medal and returned to Australia in January 1919.