The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (418) Trooper Ernest Ambrose Roberts, 7th Light Horse Regiment, 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 Troy Clayton, the story for this day was on (418) Trooper Ernest Ambrose Roberts, 7th Light Horse Regiment, First World War.

418 Trooper Ernest Ambrose Roberts, 7th Light Horse Regiment
KIA 17 September 1915

Today we remember and pay tribute to Trooper Ernest Ambrose Roberts.

Ernest Roberts was born in 1872, the youngest son of William and Jessie Roberts. Born in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, when he was three years old the family moved to Bathurst, where his father was in charge of the architect’s branch of the Public Works. Ernest began his education at All Saints’ College, where Charles Bean’s father was headmaster. He was described as a “high spirited lad (always with a strong dash of mischief in his makeup)” who from an early age showed a great talent at playing rugby.

From All Saints, Ernest went to the King’s School in Parramatta. At some point in his schooling career, Ernest won the nickname “Nulla”, which was widely used for the rest of his life. Nulla Roberts was described by more than one person as the “idol” or “hero” of the King’s School, and the headmaster later said of him that “the boy at the time seemed to sum up what a boy of the King’s School could and should be.” Roberts retained his relationship with the school throughout his life as an active member of old boys’ networks and committees.

Ernest Roberts went on to work in Sydney as a solicitor, forming a partnership with his good friend from school, Paddy Lane. Nulla and Paddy had become friends through playing rugby union together at school, and while their legal partnership was successful, both became much more widely known through their talent at the game.

Nulla Roberts was first selected to represent New South Wales against Queensland in 1890, and would represent his state regularly through the first part of the decade. Despite his compelling personality, Nulla was described as “a man of very quiet disposition and singularly unobtrusive”. He had a quiet voice, “which was never heard on the football field”.

On 8 December 1899 Ernest Roberts married Elsie Laishley in St Mary’s Cathedral, Auckland. Their daughter, Joyce, was born in Sydney in 1901, followed by a son, Harley, born in 1906.

On the outbreak of war in 1914, Nulla Roberts was an established Sydney solicitor with a growing family and an aging, widowed mother reliant on him. Nevertheless he could not shake the feeling that he needed to go and serve his country in war. In mid-1915, with recruitment in Australia starting to slow, enlistment standards were relaxed, raising the maximum age for enlistment from 38 to 45 – the crucial element to enable Roberts to enlist. He said, “the young, single men will not go and so an older and a married man like myself had better set an example, and it may shame some of them into doing their duty.” Despite his many friends begging him to reconsider, Ernest Roberts enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force a month before his 43rd birthday.

Private Ernest Roberts left Australia for active service overseas with the 12th Light Horse Regiment on the troopship Suevic in June 1915. The commanding officer of this regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Percy Abbott, was a friend and fellow-rugby player. Abbott’s wife later recalled “I was talking to [Roberts] on the day the Suevic left the harbor. He said he hoped he would come back, but felt he would not.” She added, “my husband and I always thought it so grand of Nulla to go into the ranks, but he was always such a man.”

The 12th Light Horse Regiment was sent to Egypt, arriving on 23 July 1915. However, the regiment was disbanded soon after its arrival, and the men sent as reinforcements to the light horse units serving on Gallipoli. As part of this process, Roberts was transferred to the 7th Light Horse Regiment. Within a week, he was wounded by a bomb fragment in the forearm, but not seriously enough to warrant leaving the lines.

Private Roberts was delighted to be at war. One of his comrades wrote to a mutual friend in Sydney to say, “Do you remember the last Sunday we were at Holdsworthy when he was the life of us all? He was just the same here in this squadron, liked by everybody and shirking nothing, doing his work no matter what sort, and always cheerfully.”

On 17 September 1915, there was a small sniping battle going on between the Turks and the Australians in Nulla Roberts’ part of the line. Lieutenant Gordon Brown, an old King’s boy who had left Australia with the 12th Light Horse Regiment and transferred to the 6th, later recalled, “a decoy man was put up suddenly some 30 yards or so nearer to the Australians’ lines, and Nulla was told of the opportunity.” He put his head over the parapet to get a shot. Brown added, “just what Nulla would do… to up at one to have a go!” Just as Roberts put his head up, however, a Turkish bullet crashed into it, and he fell to the floor of the trench, dead.

The Bathurst Times noted that “it would be impossible to mention all the tributes to Nulla Roberts one has heard and read. Suffice it to say they all agree in the loving recognition of his noble qualities of true manliness, real loyalty and steadfast desire to serve to the utmost of his power. Of such great-hearted sons Australia should indeed be proud.”

Private Ernest Roberts was buried in Shell Green Cemetery, where he lies today. He was 43 years old.

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 Trooper Ernest Ambrose Roberts, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section