BROWN, William Edward Charles
| Service Number: | 1925 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 57th Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Not yet discovered |
| Home Town: | Leichhardt, Leichhardt, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Not yet discovered |
| Died: | Illness (Tetanus), France, 7 December 1916, age not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: |
St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen St Sever Cemetery Extension, Haute-Normandie, France |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Haymarket NSW Government Railway and Tramway Honour Board, Leichhardt War Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 4 May 1916: | Involvement Private, 1925, 60th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '20' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Port Lincoln embarkation_ship_number: A17 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 4 May 1916: | Embarked Private, 1925, 60th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Port Lincoln, Melbourne | |
| 7 Dec 1916: | Involvement Private, 1925, 57th Infantry Battalion, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 1925 awm_unit: 57 Battalion awm_rank: Private awm_died_date: 1916-12-07 |
Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board
William Edward Charles BROWN, (Service Number 1925) was born on 16 May 1897 in Sydney. He commenced work with the NSW Tramways as an electrical junior in February 1912. Since he never lived into adulthood, he retained this junior status for his whole career, though he did claim ‘engineer’ as his calling on his Attestation Papers, as well as six months experience in the 31st Infantry Regiment of the Militia. In November of that year he was working at Central substation.
On 28 December 1915 he was released from duty to join the Expeditionary Forces and enlisted in January 1916. He left Australia through Melbourne on 4 May 1916 on HMAT ‘Port Lincoln’. He reached Suez in Egypt in June for further training and left through Alexandria to Marseilles, but then travelled to England, from where he was taken on the strength of the 57th Battalion at Etaples, France.
At the end of November he was admitted to hospital at Rouen, with ‘Trench Feet’, but his condition worsened and he died of disease – tetanus – on 7 December 1916 and was buried in St Sever Cemetery Extension, Haute-Normandie, France.
His file in the National Archives of Australia includes a letter from the Chief Accountant of the NSWGR&T seeking confirmation of dates for the sake of calculating the difference between his military pay and railway pay.
(NAA B2455-1803234)
Submitted 12 May 2023 by John Oakes