Leather purse: Chaplain 4th Class (Captain) A Gillison, Chaplains Department, AIF

Brown leather purse with rounded base and sides, and stitched in white cotton. It has a closing flap and three inside compartments. The purse originally held three Turkish 20 piastres coins which are now accessioned as RELC02015.

Leather purse belonging to Chaplain 4th Class (Captain) Andrew Gillison, Chaplains Department, and used at Gallipoli. Chaplain Gillison was born on 7 June 1868. He had served as a Private in the Queen's Edinburgh Rifle Volunteer Corps, Scotland for 2 years from 1885 to 1887. He later moved to Australia and was a Chaplain in the Commonwealth Military Forces (C.M.F.) for 8 years.

Chaplain Gillison enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 23 October 1914. He embarked with the 14th Battalion from Melbourne on the A34 Ulysses on 22 December 1914. He died of wounds received on 22 August 1915, while attending to the wounded and the burial of the dead at the 16th Casualty Clearing Station at Gallipoli. He was 46 years of age.

Gillison was mentioned in despatches posthumously on 28 January 1916; his recommendation reads, 'Went forward to assist in bringing in the wounded of the 13th and 14th Australian Inf. Batallions, who had made an attack. Hearing cries of help from a wounded man who had been lying in an exposed position since the previous afternoon, he crept to his assistance, and while dragging him back behind the crest line was mortally wounded. Throughout the campaign the Revd Andrew Gillison had been most assiduous in his assistance to the wounded, neither sparing himself, nor hesitating to carry on his labours in the most exposed situation.s' Chaplain Gillison is buried at Gallipoli 18, Embarkation Pier Cemetery, Anzac, Gallipoli.