Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Arthur Robert Goodsall was born in December 1875 to his parents Robert and Hephzibah Goodsall at Fulham, London UK.  His father died in 1878 when Arthur was just 2.  He and his mother were living at Hampstead when tragedy struck again in 1884 when his mother died.  Arthur was only 8 when he became an orphan so his uncle, Walter Goodsall, became his guardian.  Walter was a master mariner.   

On the 17th December 1899, aged 24, Arthur embarked from Southampton on HMS Tintagel Castle bound for Cape Town, South Africa, to serve for 18 months in the Boer War.  His service number was 12567 and initially he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the 10th Bearer Company.  The medical personnel attached to each company were one medical N.C.O. and two stretcher bearers whose task it was to take the wounded to the battalion aid post where they were attended to by a Medical Officer assisted by a medical N.C.O.  Arthur later transferred to serve in the 7th General Hospital at Pretoria. 

In the early 1900s Arthur became involved with three theatrical companies in England.  William Poel’s Elizabethan Stage Society, Frank Benson’s Shakespearean and Olde English Comedy Company and Allan Wilkie’s Shakespearean Company.  Arthur served an apprenticeship with one of these companies but it’s unclear as to which one.  In 1901 Arthur assisted William Poel in the production of ‘Everyman’ in England where it was hugely successful.  It took eight months to prepare and it ran for 4 years. 

In April 1909 he performed in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Statford-on-Avon.  In July the same year Arthur designed over 5,000 costumes for a historical pageant held in Victoria Park at Bath.

In September 1911 Arthur went on tour with Allan Wilkie’s Company throughout Asia and the Far East including India, China, the Philippines, Malay States and Japan.  The tour ended in May 1913. 

Arthur came to Australia in 1914 having been engaged to work for a theatrical company.  With the outbreak of the war he enlisted in the AIF at Brisbane, Queensland on the 12th July 1915 aged 38.  His service number was 1711, his rank a Private and his unit was the 3rd Field Ambulance, 10th reinforcements.  He’s described as being 5ft 6ins tall with a fresh complexion, grey eyes and brown hair.

After completing his initial training at the Enoggera Camp he embarked from Brisbane on the HMAT Wandilla on the 5th October 1915 arriving at the Anzac Base at Mudros on Lemnos Island on the 4th December 1915.  Now here’s where the story gets a little interesting.  My grandfather, Cyril Morsley, also served with the 3rd Field Ambulance but he was with the 11th reinforcements.  He sailed the day before Arthur from Sydney on the HMAT Mashobra but Cyril mentions Arthur in his war diary for the first time on the 1st December and then again the next day.  From Cyril’s diary I know that his ship arrived in Mudros harbour on the 27th November but they didn’t disembark till the 4th December so I’m not quite sure how Arthur ended up being on Cyril’s ship on the 1st December.  I know from their service records that Arthur and Cyril went from the ship to the Anzac Base camp that same day.  Also from their records, two days later both embarked for the Dardenelles and I know from Cyril’s diary that he embarked at 3pm on the HMT Osmanieh so I think we can assume that Arthur did too.  They arrived at Anzac Cove at midnight and went ashore under fire at 6am on the 7th December.  This date is also confirmed in Arthur’s service records.  Cyril next mentions Arthur in his diary on the 9th December when they were both detailed for stretcher bearing at the 3rd Field Ambulance beach dressing station.  From here on Cyril mentions Arthur very regularly in his diary. 

Arthur was evacuated from Anzac Cove on the 18th December 1915 to Mudros where he remained till the 27th then boarded the HMT Caledonia for Alexandria.  He then proceeded to the Tel-el-Kebir Camp in Egypt where he met up with Cyril again who was evacuated from Anzac Cove the day after Arthur.  The two continue working together for the next 2 months then proceed to Alexandria on the 26th March where they and the whole company of the 3rd Field Ambulance embark on the HMT Kingstonian for France.  While at sea one of the men of the 3rd Field Ambulance was lost overboard while sleep walking, Private Percy Fennell.  Cyril made a note of this in his diary on 30th March 1916. 

“At 9.15pm I heard the cry “Man Overboard!” and the steam hooter on the funnel made an awful din.  It appears that Fennell (Private P.E.R. 2252) walked in his sleep and walked over the rail.  The Sentry saw him and shouted.  We went full steam astern, lowered a boat and a buoy etc. but did not recover his body.”

The 3rd Field Ambulance arrived at Marseilles, France, on the 3rd April and took a train ride for 3 days before disembarking at Godewaersvelde, near the Belgian border.  They marched 10miles to their billet at Pradelles…the barn of a farmhouse.  It was 6 miles from the ‘front’ and the boom of the artillery was very loud in the cold night air.  Arthur and Cyril took a walk into the village that night.  A few nights later they shared a pork chop meal together in the village.  One evening while on one of his walks, Cyril met an Englishman actor who was performing in the play ‘Milestones’ and invited him to come and meet Arthur which he did the following evening.  There are many entries in Cyril’s diary about he and Arthur spending time together on duty and when they were off duty, they’d often go for walks, share a meal, a glass of wine and a cigarette.  They formed a close bond and when Cyril was hospitalised in November 1916 with peritoneal adhesions, ‘Goody’ as Cyril called him, came to visit him.  Cyril remained in hospital till early December when he was evacuated to England thus separating the two mates.  Cyril never returned to France and was returned to Australia in May 1918. 

Arthur took leave in England in late May 1917 and upon his return in early June transferred from the 3rd Field Ambulance to the 1st Australian General Hospital at Rouen.  In July 1917 the medical board classified Arthur for ‘PB’ duty, which means permanent base.  Three months later he was classified as ‘PU’, permanently unfit, due to rheumatism.  In late February 1918 while on leave in England he became unwell and was admitted to the 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Harefield with appendicitis.  Four days later he had surgery for a double hernia and the removal of his appendix.  He was classified medically unfit for general service permanently and for home service for 6 months.  He was repatriated back to Australia in early April on the HMHS Dunluce Castle and then the HMHS Karoola from Suez, disembarking at Sydney in late May.  From there he proceeded to the 6th Australian General Hospital at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane, Queensland, and was discharged from the AIF on the 28th June 1918.  Arthur moved to Melbourne and served as a recruiting Sergeant for the remainder of the war.

After the war Arthur returned to the thing he was most passionate about before the war…the theatre.  The Mermaid Play Society was formed mid 1919 and Arthur was its first producer.  The first production was ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’ which he produced and acted in and also designed the costumes and the stage setting.  A second production that year was ‘Everyman’ which he’d done in England and it was attended by Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson, the wife of the Governor-General and the Patron of the society.  In 1920 there were two productions, ‘The Critic’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale’, both performed at the Melba Hall in Melbourne. 

Arthur relinquished his work with the society when he took up the position of costume designer with Allan Wilkie’s Shakespearean Company in the production of ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Palace Theatre in 1921.  Allan Wilkie had moved to Australia in 1914.  Arthur continued to act for Wilkie and performed in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in 1921 at the Grand Opera House at Melbourne. 

Having never fully recovered his health after the war, Arthur died at Heidelberg, Victoria, on the 29th August 1923 aged 48.      

Arthur Robert Goodsall was awarded for service in WW1 the 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal and the Gallipoli Medallion.

Respectfully submitted by Sue Smith 18th May 2021