Hindhaugh, Jacob (Jack) Edwin (Major, b.1881 - d.1959)

Collection relating to the First World War service of Major Jacob Edwin (Jack) Hindhaugh, Light Horse Brigade and Cyclist Corps AIF, Gallipoli and France, 1914-1918. Hindhaugh commenced his war service with the first convoy to go overseas in October 1914 and didn't leave the Western Front until the AIF’s last day of battle in October 1918. The collection consists of five original handwritten diaries plus an incomplete transcript which includes the contents of a missing original diary. The diaries detail conditions and activities throughout Hindhaugh’s service. Also included in the collection are a large number of postcards, photographs, and other souvenirs, most of which are housed in albums.

The five diaries are respectively dated: 18 October 1914 to 26 March 1915; 27 March 1915 to 7 May 1915; 1 January 1916 to 31 December 1916; 1 January 1917 to 31 December 1917; and 1 January 1918 to 23 December 1918. A sixth diary, available in transcript form, covers the period 8 May 1915 to 31 December 1915. In early May 1915 Jack landed at Gallipoli, as Aide-de-Camp to Colonel Henry George (Harry) Chauvel, who was commander of the AIF’s 1st Light Horse Brigade. Two weeks prior to this landing, on 28 April, Jack’s diary entry from Heliopolis reads ‘… the sooner we shift out of this place the better – rumours afloat that the Australians have been in action. If they have it will bring home to the people in Australia the realisation of war. There must be big casualties in this war, more in one day than the whole of the South African War’.

Jack’s service in Gallipoli was brief, he was wounded in the Turkish offensive within weeks of arriving, and evacuated two months later, on 1 July 2015. Following recuperation in Heliopolis, Jack was appointed to command Australia’s 1st Division Cyclist Company. His diary entry on 14 March 1916 reads ‘Went over to the 4th Light Horse, saw Stan, he said that the command of the Cyclist Corp is to be offered to me and I was to see Col. Foott in Cairo. Went in and had a talk to him. Have accepted it and I will leave with the 1st Division for France.’

The cyclists were employed militarily for the first time when the 1st Division entered the line south of Armentieres in mid-April 1916. Jack’s diaries include daily entries covering routine tasks, weather conditions, billeting, relocation orders, liaisons, casualty reports and leave activities. The cyclists’ role was predominantly one of support; they would scout ahead, determining the best routes forward, and provide mobile contact between the flanks of brigades and divisions. Six months into the role of commanding the 1st Division Cyclist Company, on 25 September 1916, Jack was promoted from captain to major, and continued in this post on the Western Front for the next two years. The final sentence in his last diary reads ‘So home at last after four years and two months’. In total his diaries cover a massive 1430 days of his First World War experience.

The collection also includes a typed, incomplete transcription of Jack’s diaries; the final transcribed entry is 23 February 1917. The transcription is headed 'Behind the Lines. The Diary of Jack Hindhaugh 1914 – 18', and totals 243 pages. Editorial notes, comments and biographies supplement daily entries. Further supplementary material includes a series of seven handwritten news bulletins, titled 'Ceylon Telegraphs', and a map of Palestine.

In addition to the diaries, Jack complied a visual record of his war service comprising nearly 1000 postcards, more than a hundred photographs, and ephemera ranging from concert programs to pressed flowers. Approximately 725 of the postcards have been chronologically and geographically displayed in a large album, titled 'Round the World, 1914 – 1918!' Countries featured include Egypt, Malta, Italy, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Canada and lastly Australia.

Remaining photographic and illustrative postcards, numbering approximately 150, are contained in a beige, leather covered album. This album also houses about 20 photographs. Many of the postcards have become detached from their mountings and are lying loose between the pages. An extra 23 postcards, five of which are inscribed, are housed separately, but presumably originated from this album.

The collection also includes another two albums, both with dark green covers, one contains approximately 80 photographs, and the other contains ephemera, including dinner menus, sports and concert programs, leave passes and pressed flowers. Both albums contain loose items. Loose ephemera includes: German hospital patient tag; 50 centimes currency note; censor stamps; Australian Imperial Force Souvenir Card of the Australian Transport Fleet; two dinner menus, one dated 11 September 1914, and the other 26 September 1911, both with signatures overleaf; menu from the School of Instruction; God Save the King prayer, signed by Major Jacob Edwin Hindhaugh; German prisoner of war letter dated 1917; greeting cards; and a hymn book titled ‘With the Colours, For God, King and Country. Psalms and Hymns for Soldiers in the Field’. The cover is annotated in cursive handwriting, noting the hymn book was picked up in a trench in France, in March 1917.