Next of Kin Plaque: Private William Stewart Murdoch, 48 Battalion, AIF

Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge. Beneath the main figures, the British lion defeats the German eagle. The initials 'ECP', for the designer Edward Carter Preston appear above the lion's right forepaw. A raised rectangle above the lion's head bears the name 'WILLIAM STEWART MURDOCH'. The plaque is contained in its original cardboard sleeve.

Born at Rushworth, Victoria, William Stewart Murdoch was employed as a mill hand at Jordanup, Western Australia when he enlisted in the AIF on 10 January 1916. After initial training he was posted a private, service number 5147, to the 16th Reinforcements for 16th Battalion. The unit sailed for overseas service from Fremantle aboard HMAT A9 Shropshire on 31 March.

On arrival in England Murdoch was transferred to reinforcements for 48th Battalion. After further training he joined A Company of his battalion at Berteaucourt, France on 21 July. Murdoch was killed on 8 August at Sausage Valley, near Pozieres. He had taken a water cart to the cookhouse where men were waiting for their breakfast when a shell blew up the cook house. Approximately 26 men were killed and 16 wounded; only one man in the group was left completely unwounded. Murdoch is said to have been blown to pieces, one of the surviving cooks finding his leg with the boot still on it. He was 31 years old. The dead were buried in a mass grave and later exhumed for formal burial in a war cemetery. Murdoch's remains could not be identified and his name is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.

This memorial plaque was sent to Murdoch's widowed mother, Rebecca, in August 1922.