Aubrey Loomes, son of a teacher and a teacher himself, enlisted in August 1914 and was sent to Gallipoli as a signaller with B company, 1st Battalion. On May 2, 1915, the Turkish army began a determined attack and everyone, including the signallers, was ordered to the firing line at the top of Shrapnel Gully, the Australians’ path up to the frontline that was mercilessly shelled by the Turks. He never came back. His watch was reportedly found in the scrub. A Red Cross report states: “Killed in action 2.5.15. No burial report.”
Others, like Aubrey Loomes, who had been teaching at Paddington prior to enlistment, survived the Landing but simply disappeared in the confusion of the first few weeks of fighting.
The recently-published NSW Teacher ANZAC project holds records of almost all of these men. Their names are recorded on the honour rolls at the Education headquarters at Bridge Street, Sydney but it’s hard to know if William Bartrop is remembered at Bathurst High or James Youman’s life is remembered at Petersham PS. I certainly hope they are. Over time, schools who might have lost these connections could use the information in the NSW Teacher ANZAC project — it might help those schools discover a little of their past.
White’s great work
Among the teacher ANZACs who returned to Australia after the war was a remarkable man who became an Inspector of Schools and felt it his duty to record the service of these teachers.
Despite his own war injuries, Thomas Alexander White (1886–1962) moved round the school system documenting the men who returned from the war and ensuring the history of those who served and especially the deeds of those who died was recorded. While his hope for wide publication was not realised during his lifetime, his remarkable work is available online.
Mr White’s careful documentation and research uncovered many untold stories. It was he who was able to identify that Albert Druce, a teacher at Tirrana Creek PS, had died of disease at Cape Town — he never got to the Western Front. And he was able to report that Leslie Dinning, who taught at Mosman before enlistment had returned to Australia and remained at Randwick military hospital until his death in 1924.
When Alfred Corner, the Police Officer at Mulbring, was told that his son Claud, who had taught at Cessnock, had been killed in action, he did not know that he would conduct a long letter writing campaign to get his son’s possessions back. These few things were important to the parents and there are many letters in the National Archives begging for these precious possessions.
Following Mr. White’s work, a more recent publication by Tom Spencer has documented the efforts to build the honour rolls on the walls of the Education headquarters at Bridge Street that record the names of teachers who served in a number of conflicts. An electronic version of Spencer’s work can be viewed here.
The Soldier Teacher Project was able to make use of the vast amount of information now available online, and has produced information about teachers who enlisted from Aberglasslyn to Nowra to Woodburn and everywhere in between and who died on active service. Summaries of the information held can be viewed here.
The Federation Library, the Department of Education and Communities and the State Library all hold full copies of the Project.
If members are interested to see if a soldier enlisted from or was educated at their school, they can consult the linked documents. Individual files of combatants are available freely upon application.
There is an understatement in these teacher stories that is very Australian. It is in stark contrast to the flag-waving emotional nationalism that occasionally surrounds present day ANZAC Day commemorations.
In a memoriam notice by the parents of Eric Hancock, who been educated at Dungog and taught at Fort Street High before enlisting and being killed in action near Fleurbaix in 1916, it was simply and poignantly written: “He Did His Bit”
For further information: contact Ross Bell on email, (02) 8005 6218 or 0402 285 972.
