Pattern 1915 Australian Leather Equipment haversack

Khaki canvas haversack with leather straps, brass buckles and internal canvas divider. The inside of the flap is stamped 'C.G.H.F. [broad arrow symbol] 1916'. The original shoulder strap has been removed and a webbing shoulder strap with brass clips, from a gas respirator case, substituted in its place.

This haversack is associated with Thomas 'Tom' Edmund Dowson Haw a British soldier who served in the First World War, initially as a private in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (service number 29380), then from 1917 as a private in the Mechanized Transport Section of the Amy Service Corps (service number M2/156363).

At the end of the war he married Dorothy 'Dora' Shevill. The couple emigrated to Australia in the 1920s. It is not known whether Tom collected the haversack during his wartime service, or whether it was a surplus disposal item which he later acquired in Australia.

Pattern 1915 Australian Leather Equipment was made in Australia between 1915 and 1919. It closely followed the Pattern 1908 Web Infantry Equipment but instead of heavy cotton webbing used canvas and leather in its place. It was developed in response to the inability of the manufacturers of cotton webbing to expand their specialised factories quickly enough to supply the rapidly expanding army.