Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Killed in France in 1916, Hugh Ramsay Butler was born near Cooktown but lived in the Cardwell Shire from a young age before enlisting. His family remained in the shire all their lives.

Hugh, known as Rowdy to his family and friends, was the eldest son of Thomas and May Mulreany Butler. Thomas was born in Oxfordshire, England in 1856 and came to Australia in about 1872. Thomas was the youngest of a family of 12 and three of his brothers, Charles, Henry and Joseph, also emigrated to Australia. In 1891 Tom married May Miller at Cooktown.

Tom worked as a line repairer on the electric telegraph. He arrived in Cardwell in 1896 with his family as he had been appointed Cardwell Postmaster and Linesman-in-charge. May ran the Post and Telegraph Station while Tom was away repairing and checking on the lines. They operated the Cardwell office until moving to a 640 acre (259 hectare) grazing property at Murray Upper in 1902. They called this property “Fringford” after the village where Tom grew up in England. He was sometime Chairman and Secretary of the school building committee which successfully agitated for a Provisional School at Murray Upper and donated the land where the school was built and opened in 1904. He continued to serve on the school parents’ committee for some years. Thomas Butler was also a Shire Councillor in 1907, 1914 and from 1916 to 1918.

Hugh Ramsay Butler was born at Floraville, in the Far North on 14 September 1893. He was educated at Cardwell School (enrolled 1899) and Murray River Upper Provisional School. After leaving school he worked as a stockman around the Tully River, and for Surveyor Durack on his survey of farms at Feluga. Rowdy also did some cane-cutting work at Mossman before enlisting. On a card which he wrote from the Mossman district to his sister in August 1914, he mentioned that he had earned £4/3/- (about $8.30) for eight days work with a cane-cutting gang. The Roll of Honour records state that he did “the usual work of a Bush Lad, mostly stock”.

When Rowdy decided to volunteer for service, an Evening Farewell party at the Spollens’ home was held, which went until 4.00am, then Hugh rode from Murray Upper to Cardwell on his bicycle on 5 January 1916. The family drove to Cardwell in the buggy and there was another farewell dance in his honour at the Hotel. He left on the Steamship Kuranda for Townsville and enlisted in the first AIF on 10 January. He spent his pre-embarkation leave with the Scully family at Kingaroy. Mr. Scully had been postmaster at Cardwell from 1910-1914. Rowdy was not able to travel home to spend leave with his family as he had joined the NCO (Non Commissioned Officers) training, through which he became Acting Corporal. Mrs Butler was later to point out that he was the only one of the local lads who was not able to return to see his people before leaving for the front. He reverted to Private when his unit, the 2nd Reinforcements, joined his Battalion under normal Army procedure.

Rowdy sailed with the 2nd Reinforcements for the 47th Battalion, AIF on SS Hawkes Bay from Sydney on 20 April. From Alexandria he proceeded on the Franconia to Plymouth, England, arriving on 16 June 1916.

He was sent to France on 25 July to join his unit and enter the trenches on the Western Front soon after the commencement of what was to be the protracted and horrific Battle of the Somme. The 47th Battalion participated in its first major battle at Pozières, enduring two stints in the heavily contested trenches as well as a period in reserve. Rowdy spent a short time in hospital in early October. Three months after Rowdy’s unit arrived, the battalion went into another action, this time at Gueudecourt near Flers on the Somme.

For two weeks his platoon was under shell fire, then on the night of 27 November they were relieved from their posts at the front line. Next day, they made their way up the valley which was being shelled. A comrade of Rowdy’s, R. J. Kiely of Mossman, was wounded. Rowdy lifted and carried Kiely but was killed by enemy fire, and the soldier he rescued later died from the wounds he received. The official histories mark the end of the Somme campaign as November 21. Rowdy made it through the terrible battle; but sadly, he did not survive the closing phase of the operation as he was Killed in Action on November 28.

Mr and Mrs Butler received word of their son’s death on 21 December, six days after their Silver Wedding Anniversary. The telegram arrived at the Post Office in Cardwell, but as no Minister of Religion was then resident in Cardwell, the awful news was brought to them by Mrs Hull, wife of the Shire Clerk, who drove from Cardwell to Murray Upper to tell the family. When Mrs Butler saw her coming she said, “Rowdy’s been killed”. She knew Mrs Hull would not make the long journey for any less reason.

A letter which they received later from Rowdy’s commanding officer commended his bravery and referred to his “sterling qualities as a soldier and honourable nature as a man”. Sergeant Schulz concluded his letter: “well may you be proud of Hughie”. A memorial scroll, memorial plaque (sent in 1923) and a photograph of his grave (sent in 1920) were small comfort to Mrs Butler. Rowdy’s grave lies in the Bulls Road Cemetery, Flers, where a total of 776 Commonwealth Servicemen of WW1 were buried or commemorated; 296 of these were unidentified. The death notice which the family placed in the North Queensland Register stated he was Killed in Action, somewhere in France. Aged 23 years. He Gave His Life for His Country.

Although Tom and May had five children in all, none of them married and no direct descendants remain. With the exception of Rowdy, all the Butler family were buried on the Murray Upper property under a group of mango trees. In 1972 engraved plaques were placed on the graves by youngest brother, Ashley. Subsequent owners, Mr and Mrs G. Holmes, added plaques on the graves of Shirley and Ashley as they had subsequently died. A plaque in memory of Rowdy was placed at the burial ground close to the headstones on the graves.

Council minutes record that it was unanimously resolved to write a letter of condolence to Councillor Butler on the death of his eldest son while fighting for his King and country.

Rowdy’s name is inscribed on the Honour Board in the former Shire Hall at Cardwell and on the monument to the fallen on the Cardwell foreshore.

When it was decided to name the streets of the new town of Tully after men and women of the shire who had served their country during the Great War, the main street was named after Hugh Ramsay Butler.
Courtesy of The Cardwell and District Research Society .