Gold sweetheart brooch and locket : Private E M Nixon, 19 Battalion AIF

Small gold brooch featuring a rising sun badge, from which is suspended a round gold locket with an engraved face. The locket appears to be openable but is prevented from doing so by its means of attachment.

Associated with the service of 6118 Private Ernest Millington Nixon, a farmer of Reefton, NSW. Aged 29 when he enlisted in his home town on 25 July 1916, Nixon embarked for overseas service from Sydney aboard HMAT Ascanius with the 14th - 17th reinforcements for 19 Battalion. Disembarking at Devonport in England on 28 December 1916, Nixon completed his training at Rollestone and crossed the Channel to France on 12 March 1917 where he joined his new battalion as a member of A Company.

Two months later Private Nixon was dead, although he was initially posted as missing in action. In response to an enquiry regarding his status from Nixon's cousin, Miss Varcoe, Private Donald Rial of B Company, 19 Battalion recalled from hospital: 'I knew Ernest Nixon - he was a Reinforcement man. ... We all came over together. We called him Ernie. We went out together in the same line at midnight. He was wounded the same day as I was at Bullecourt on 3 May 1917. I believe it was a fatal high explosive.'

Correspondence to his father in 1921 states that 'his body was found during the operations conducted by the Graves Registration Unit' in late January 1918. Private Ernest Nixon is now buried at Queant Road Cemetery, Buissy, France.

The locket is likely to contain a small photograph or lock of hair from Nixon's sweetheart.