Next of Kin plaque: Private Walter Edwin Byrne, 5th 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. A raised rectangle above the lion's head bears the name 'PERCIVAL GEORGE CHANDLER'. The initials 'ECP', for the designer Edward Carter Preston appear above the lion's right forepaw. A checker's mark, '12', is impressed behind the lion's rear left paw.

Born at Crinda, New South Wales, Walter Edwin Byrne was employed as a miner when he enlisted in the AIF in Melbourne, Victoria, on 11 September 1916. After initial training he was posted a private, service number 6955, to the 23rd Reinforcements for 5th Battalion. The unit sailed from Melbourne on 23 November aboard HMAT Hororata, and arrived at Plymouth, England at the end of January 1917.

Byrne undertook further training in England and France before joining his battalion in the field at Lagnicourt on 12 May. He was killed at Glencorse Wood, Belgium on 20 September, during the Third Battle of Ypres, on a day when his battalion suffered 271 casualties. He was 22 years old. Although Byrne was buried near the wood his body could not be located for formal burial in a military cemetery after the war, and his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

This memorial plaque was sent to his widowed mother, Mrs Isabella Gordon Byrne, in September 1922.










6955 Private Walter Edwin Byrne served with the 5th Battalion, 23rd Reinforcement. He was killed in action 20 September 1917.