The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (993) Private William Stewart, 59th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

Places
Accession Number AWM2017.1.13
Collection type Film
Object type Last Post film
Physical description 16:9
Maker Australian War Memorial
Place made Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Canberra, Campbell
Date made 13 January 2017
Access Open
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Copying Provisions Copyright restrictions apply. Only personal, non-commercial, research and study use permitted. Permission of copyright holder required for any commercial use and/or reproduction.
Description

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Charis May, the story for this day was on (993) Private William Stewart, 59th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

Film order form
Speech transcript

993 Private William Stewart, 59th Battalion, AIF
DOW 14 October 1917
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 13 January 2017

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private William Stewart, who died of wounds while fighting in Belgium in the First World War.

William Stewart was born in 1882 to John and Sarah Stewart in Chicago, one of seven children born to the couple. He immigrated to Australia with his family when he was three, and most of his life was spent in the small settlement of fruit growers at Riverside, near Horsham in western Victoria, where he and his father worked as orchardists. He married Rosa Revolta in 1912 and the couple had two children, Ida and Leslie.

Having previously been rejected for bad teeth, Stewart successfully enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Horsham in March 1916. After a period of training he sailed for the training camps in England as an original member of the newly raised 38th Battalion. He spent several months training on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire and sailed for France in October, after which he was transferred to the 59th Battalion in the relatively quiet sector of Armentières, on the Belgian border.

The 59th Battalion had already suffered heavy casualties in the fighting at Fromelles, and Stewart was one of many reinforcements sent to bring it back up to strength. The men conducted patrols of no man’s land and carried out raids on German trenches before being transferred to the Somme, where they spent the winter holding the line between the villages of Flers and Gueudecourt. After months of artillery bombardments and relentless autumn rains, this part of the Somme battlefield became a quagmire of thick, glutinous mud. In November Stewart was hospitalised with a severe case of influenza, and did not return to the trenches until January 1917.

Stewart participated in the major battles that defined the AIF’s 1917 campaign on the Western Front, including the advance towards the Hindenburg Line throughout March and April, and the Second Battle of Bullecourt in May. The focus of operations shifted north into Belgium, where the British made a concerted effort to break out of the Ypres Salient, through to the German submarine bases on the Belgian coast. Stewart took part in this advance as well, fighting at Polygon Wood in September.

On 13 October 1917 the 59th Battalion had just taken up positions at Tokio Ridge, not too far from Polygon Wood, where enemy activity appeared to be quiet. Later that evening German artillery opened fire on the battalion’s positions, zeroing in on the headquarters dug-outs and continuing for almost nine hours. Two battalion runners were killed in the bombardment and Stewart was wounded. He died of his wounds later that day, aged 35.

Stewart was buried near where he fell, but the location of his grave was lost in subsequent fighting. He is listed on the Menin Gate Memorial along with the more than 6,000 Australian soldiers killed in action who have no known grave. Stewart’s grieving widow inserted the following epitaph in the local newspaper two years after his death:

The peaceful hours we once enjoyed
How sweet their memory still,
But they have left an aching void
The world will never fill.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private William Stewart, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Section

  • Video of The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (993) Private William Stewart, 59th Battalion, AIF, First World War. (video)