Carmichael, Ambrose Campbell (Captain, b.1866 - d.1953)

Collection relating to service of Captain Ambrose Campbell Carmichael MC, 33 and 36 Battalion, France, 1917. Collection contains a letter from Carmichael to T. G. Adamson, Nemingha, Tamworth, NSW.

Biographical note: Carmichael worked as a teacher, farmer, journalist and accountant before he was elected to the New South Wales Parliament in 1907, as the Labor Member for Leichhardt. He held a variety of ministries and his parliamentary career was dynamic yet controversial. He established the State Conservatorium of Music in 1914. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1914, he took a business holiday in the United Kingdom and on the Continent to recuperate. He became disturbed by war preparations, and on his return to Sydney he organised voluntary rifle drilling companies. Resigned his ministry in 1915 and was appointed a royal commissioner to inquire into the administration of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. In November 1915, he announced that he had the support of the military and recruiting authorities to carry out his own programme 'to raise a thousand rifle reserve recruits' who would join the Australian Imperial Force with him. His successful campaign became the talk of Sydney. He was 43 when he enlisted on 23 November 1915 and was allotted to 36 Battalion. In February 1916, when troops at the Liverpool Camp rioted, he was one of the pickets posted at Central Station to prevent stragglers getting onto the platform'. Promoted from sergeant to second lieutenant on 16 March 1916 and lieutenant on 1 August 1916. He embarked for England on 13 May 1916, and to France on 12 November 1916. He was wounded at Houplines, France, on 22 January 1917, in an action for which he was awarded the Military Cross. Promoted captain on 2 May 1917, and was wounded again on 4 October 1917. He returned to Sydney in February 1918 and proceeded to successfully raise another 'Carmichael's thousand'. In March 1918 he announced the formation of the People's Party of Soldiers and Citizens, stressing the needs of returned soldiers. Carmichael rode at the head of his thousand when they left Sydney on 19 June 1918, but arrived in France as the war was coming to an end, and returned to Australia.