Donkey's hoof from Gallipoli : Trooper T V Roberts, Auckland Mounted Rifles, New Zealand Expeditionary Force

Small donkey's front hoof shod with a solid iron plate, typical of horse and donkey shoes used in the Middle East. The shoe is attached with two pairs of nails on either side of the toe. Three of the nails are the same, with large rectangular heads measuring 14 mm x 10 mm; the fourth nail head is much smaller, measuring 7 mm x 7 mm. The toe clip has broken off. The sole plate is slightly wider than the back of the hoof and extends 12 mm beyond the back of the heel. The proper right side of the heel shows signs of damage in the animal when it was alive, possibly explaining why this donkey was shod in the first place, in an effort to protect the hoof and keep the animal in work. A number of horizontal ridges and bands that can be seen running across the hoof, are characteristic of the damage caused by laminitis, either from poor quality or excess feed, or from overwork on hard surfaces.

This donkey's hoof is an unusual souvenir from Gallipoli. It was once claimed that the hoof was from one of the donkeys used by John Simpson Kirkpatrick. Whether this is true is impossible to say, although highly unlikely, especially given the hundreds of donkeys used at Gallipoli during the campaign, the fact that the collector, 13/337 Trooper Thomas Victor Roberts, did not arrive on Gallipoli until a few weeks after Simpson's death and that Simpson's last donkey survived the campaign and was evacuated to Lemnos.

Roberts was born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1880 and moved with his parents to New South Wales as a child. He worked for two years with the Bank of Australasia before becoming Auditor General, Assistant Prime Minister and Collector of Customs in the Kingdom of Tonga under the western Pacific High Commission.

He was living at Suva, Fiji when the First World War began and was a member of the Fiji Defence Force. He joined the Samoan Expeditionary Force with the service number 1/821 as a private and embarked from Suva as part of the Fiji contingent, bound for Samoa. The role of the force was to occupy and administer German controlled Samoa. After the capture of Samoa, Roberts joined the main body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, with the service number 13/337, and became a trooper in the Auckland Mounted Rifles.

The Auckland Mounted Rifles arrived on Gallipoli on 12 May without their horses. The regiment served primarily at Walker's Ridge and Plugge's Plateau until the August offensives. On 6 August they captured Old No. 3 Post. Two days later, Roberts was wounded during the fighting around Chunuk Bair.

After the Gallipoli campaign Roberts served in England. He later joined the Australian Relief Expedition to Samoa and in 1918 married Vera Marguerite Perdriau. Roberts was the president of the North Sydney branch of the Returned Soldier's League and was a representative of the league on the commission of inquiry into the administration of war service homes. He began a business as a builder and accountant and in 1927 was nominated as the candidate for the Warringah Constitutional Club in the Warringah by-election caused by the resignation of Sir Granville Ryrie, but was unsuccessful. Thomas Roberts died in 1947.