Army Chaplains, First World War

Lists of names

• AWM8, First World War Embarkation Roll (Class 6 - Chaplains)
• Michael McKernan, The Australian churches in the Great War: attitudes and activities of the major churches (PhD thesis) (Canberra: Australian National University, 1975). Includes a list of AIF chaplains with their denomination.
• Tom Johnstone, The cross of Anzac: Australian Catholic chaplains (Virginia, Queensland: Church Archivists’ Press, 2000). Contains nominal rolls of Roman Catholic chaplains from Sudan to 2002 including RAN and RAAF.

Official records

Official records held at the Memorial relating to chaplains include:

• AWM25 177/1, Correspondence on establishments of chaplains, administrative instructions for chaplains and Senior Chaplains.
• AWM25 117/2, Nominal roll of chaplains in Egypt 1916. Also a nominal roll of chaplains after January 15th 1918 in various units.

• AWM10 4306/2/5, Correspondence regarding individual chaplains and their placements, resignations, unit establishments in England and France.

Records relating to chaplains are also held at the National Archives of Australia (NAA). These can be found using the NAA’s RecordSearch database. RecordSearch help is available on the Archives website. Other relevant records include:

• MP150/1, 431/202/177 Part 1, Chaplains appointed to RAN and RANVR [Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve] 1911-1913
• MP150/1, 431/202/177 Part 2, Chaplains appointed to RAN and RANVR [Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve] 1913-1959

Private records

The Memorial holds more than 100 private records and manuscripts relating to chaplains. Private records series 1DRL includes papers from individual chaplains collected at the request of John Treloar. These documents can be found by searching the Memorial’s Collection Search using the name of the chaplain or the keywords “chaplain” or “padre”.

Published sources

• Australian Military Forces, Regulations for the Chaplains’ Department, 1915. Extract from the Commonwealth Military Regulations.
• John Bond, The army that went with the boys: a record of Salvation Army work with the AIF (Melbourne: Salvation Army Headquarters, 1919).
• Michael Gladwin, Captains of the soul: a history of Australian Army chaplains (Newport, New South Wales: Big Sky Publishing, 2013).
• Michael McKernan, Padre: Australian chaplains in Gallipoli and France (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986).
• Rowan Strong, Chaplains in the Royal Australian Navy: 1912 to the Vietnam War (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2012).
• Graham Wilson and Joe Crumlin, “Trooper Bergin, S.J.”, Sabretache 38 (1997) pp. 3–16.

Other resources

• Maitland Woods papers held in the State Library of Queensland
  Digitised collection of letters written during the First World War.
• David John Garland papers held in the State Library of Queensland
• Transcript of a Radio National program on Army chaplains highlighting the story of Anglican Senior Chaplain Pitt-Owen.