Souvenir handkerchief : Sergeant H J Chivers, 1 Light Horse Regiment, AIF

White silk chiffon handkerchief with a folded cerise chiffon border. Machine chain stitched in one corner with a crossed Union Jack and an Australian blue ensign, with a green flower shape between them. There is a faint black ink initial 'G' beneath the flags.

Associated with the service of 400 Sergeant Henry James (Harry) Chivers, of C Squadron, 1 Light Horse Regiment (1 LHR). Chivers was a 22 year old farmer from Cowra, NSW, when he enlisted in the AIF on 22 August 1914. He had previously served in the militia, in 9 Light Horse Regiment ( NSW Mounted Rifles) in 1913 to 1914. Chivers left Sydney for overseas service on 20 October 1914, aboard HMAT A26 Star of Victoria and subsequently trained with his regiment in Egypt. 1 LHR landed on Gallipoli on 12 May 1915. Although Chivers was reported as receiving a gunshot wound to his face on 17 May, there his no record of his evacuation for medical treatment and the wound may have been a minor one. He was promoted to lance corporal shortly before his regiment left Gallipoli in December 1915, to corporal in January 1916, and sergeant at the end of this year. From August 1916 Chivers took part in operations in Palestine. At the beginning of 1917 he returned to Egypt to undertake training as a Hotchkiss (machine gun) instructor. The rest of his service, apart from a brief period with I LHR in Palestine in August and September 1917, saw him working as an instructor at Zeitoun and Moascar in Egypt and undertaking further training courses himself. On 11 November 1918, the day the armistice ending the war was signed on the Western Front, Chivers was diagnosed with acute endocarditis. He died from the disease a month later and was buried at Port Said in Egypt. Harry Chivers sent this handkerchief home as a present for his cousin, Vera Irene Chivers.