Commemorative brooch : Sergeant H Steuve, 50 Battalion, AIF

Round brooch containing a photograph of Sergeant Henry Steuve. The celluloid coating over the photograph is cracked. The brooch has a copper rim set into a gilded copper back with a brooch pin attached.

Brooch made to commemorate 300 Sergeant Henry Steuve, of 50 Battalion, AIF, who was killed in action on 2 April 1917 at Noreuil, France. Steuve, a 19 year old cook, enlisted from South Australia on 22 August 1914 and was assigned to 10 Battalion, AIF. He was wounded in action on Gallipoli on 1 June 1915. After treatment Steuve rejoined his battalion, but in early 1916 transferred to 50 Battalion. Sergeant Steuve was part of a bombing party on the night of 1/2 April 1917. Near day break he was killed by German machine gun fire. He was initially buried at the Battalion Cemetery at Noreuil. By the end of the war the exact location of his grave had been lost and he could not be reinterred in an official war cemetery. Instead, his name is recorded on the Villers-Bretonneaux Memorial. This brooch was worn by his mother, Mrs Louisa Gill, of Spalding, South Australia.