Next of kin plaque: Private Randolph Edward Edge, 18th 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 'RANDOLPH EDWARD EDGE'.

Born in Surrey, England in 1876 Randolph Edward Edge was sixteen when he emigrated to Sydney with his siblings and widowed father. His eldest sister, Mary Elizabeth, helped to raise the younger children and managed the household.

Edge was nearly thirty-nine when he enlisted in the AIF on 27 January 1915. He had been employed as a clerk and was a qualified electrical engineer. After initial training he was appointed a private (service number 1384) to D company, 18th Battalion. The unit sailed from Sydney on 25 June aboard HMAT A40 Ceramic, and after a brief stop in Egypt for rest and further training arrived at Gallipoli on 21 August, in time to take part in the last operation of the August Offensive, the attack on Hill 60.

The inexperienced battalion went into action at dawn the following day and suffered 50 per cent casualties in 24 hours. Edge is thought to have survived this. A witness to his death, Second Lieutenant John Norris Doyle, also of D Company, stated: [He] was killed in the trenches on 27th August. A bomb [grenade] exploded quite close to his head badly cutting it and his body. Edge died almost immediately. [he] fought magnificently and on several occasions had to be reprimanded... for undue exposure'. Edge's body was not recovered for burial and his name is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial.

Edge's nominated next of kin was his sister, Mary. As his father, Alexander Edge, was still living army authorities intended to issue this commemorative plaque and his son's campaign medals to him after the war because he was his nearest male relative. Mr Edge wrote asking that the items be issued to his daughter Mary instead, and they were sent to her in 1922.