The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (4193) Private Alexander Roy Norvill, 25th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

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 Sharon Bown, the story for this day was on (4193) Private Alexander Roy Norvill, 25th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

4193 Private Alexander Roy Norvill, 25th Battalion, AIF
KIA 4 July 1918
Story delivered 3 July 2018

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Alexander Roy Norvill.
Alexander Norvill was born on 14 October 1893, one of eight children of Joseph and Elizabeth Norvill of Teven, near Ballina in New South Wales. Known to friends and family by his middle name, “Roy”, he attended Ballina primary school before moving to the Tweed area in northern New South Wales, where he worked as a dairy farmer with his father and brothers. He was also a member of the Tweed Heads Rifle Club.
In September 1915 he travelled to Brisbane to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force. After several months of training at Vidgen’s Paddock Camp, he left Australia with a reinforcement group for the 25th Battalion in March 1916. Instead of proceeding to the training camps in Egypt or England, Norvill went straight to the Western Front where met up with the 25th Battalion on the Somme at Pozieres in August 1916. Just hours after joining his unit, he received a gunshot wound to the head which necessitated his evacuation to England.
He rejoined the 25th Battalion in February 1917, where he helped follow up on the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line defences some 40 kilometres away. He was wounded for a second time in May 1917, when the 25th Battalion played a supporting role in the second battle of Bullecourt. Wounded in the legs, Norvill was evacuated to England where he spent several months recovering before embarking for France again in November 1917.
In April 1918, Norvill took part in the fighting during the German Spring Offensive, in which the 25th Battalion fought a series of long-running skirmishes against German troops in and around the village of Morlancourt. It was spared the fighting for Villers-Bretonneux over the following weeks, but was involved in the attack on Hamel on 4 July 1918. Norvill’s C Company had been assigned a supporting role in the assault on the German positions near Hamel and Vaire Woods, which the Australians successfully captured in the hours before dawn. The 25th Battalion was in the process of consolidating the ground gained when a German shell landed directly in the trench in which Norvill was standing. He was killed instantly.
His remains were hastily buried behind the Australian front line and were later reinterred at Crucifix Corner Cemetery at Villers-Bretonneux. But in the 1920s, when the Imperial War Graves Commission sought to replace his temporary grave marker with a proper headstone, his remains could not be found. Among the personal effects returned to the Norvill family was his identity disc which left his body without any means of identification. It is likely he is one of the 191 unidentified burials in Crucifix Corner Cemetery, but today his name is among those commemorated on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
According to his platoon sergeant, Norvill was “a good lad, and had he lived would have been recommended for a decoration”. He was also sorely missed by his bereaved family. On the anniversary of his death in 1919, his sister, brother-in-law, and family friends wrote the following epitaph in his honour:

Just when his life was brightest,
Just when his hopes were best,
His country called, he answered,
Now in God’s hands he rests.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 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 Alexander Roy Norvill, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Aaron Pegram
Historian, Military History Program