Mothers and Widows Badge: Mrs Emily Woolley

Mothers and Widows Badge. Black silk ribbon is machine embroidered in gold with wattle sprigs, a 'Rising Sun' badge and 'FOR AUSTRALIA'. Badge is suspended from a white metal bar bearing laurel leaves. A whitemetal bar at the bottom of the ribbon bears a single star to indicate one son killed. A serial number '6854' is impressed on the reverse of the pin clasp.

Mothers and Widows Badge issued to Mrs Emily Woolley of Waverley, NSW, the mother of 7537 Private Norman Henry Woolley, who served with 2 Battalion.

Woolley enlisted in the AIF on 19 July 1916 aged 19. Being underage, Mrs Woolley had written a letter to give consent for her son to join the army. Norman Woolley spent a year training in Australia at Cootamundra, Liverpool and Milson Island. He embarked for active service on 14 June 1917, reaching Liverpool, England on 26 August. He spent the next nine months in hospitals in England, suffering from several illnesses, and finally marched in to his unit in France on 12 May 1918.

Two weeks later near Mont de Merris he was gassed. Although taken to No 2 Casualty Clearing Station, Woolley died of the effects of gas gangrene on 25 May 1918. He was buried at Ebblinghem British Cemetery near Hazebrouck. The personal inscription on his grave reads 'Dearly Loved By Mother'.