Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Willian John Barber (1894 or 1895 – 1969) was an English-Australian soldier who served as a volunteer to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps from 1915-1919. His original occupation was as an engineer but on the 8th January 1915, he enlisted to the army and embarked on the A19 Afric Boat to the European and Mediterranean theatre. He joined the 9th Light Horse Regiment with the regimental number 991a.

William was short and light, standing at only 5’ 4” (162cm) and weighing 126 lbs (57kg). He was single before the war and was a follower of the Church of England, he lived in an apartment on 9 Penge Road, South London. His mother Edith, lived in a different house in south London and was listed as William’s next-of-kin. William’s home was typical of a south London apartment and he seemed to live in quite a working-class environment, perhaps he moved to Australia in search of a better life, not content with his current state of living in England.

William passed the medical test and was cleared to join the Australian Army on the 1st of April. He got straight in to the action, serving as a trooper in the 9th Light Horse Regiment as the allies attacked the Ottoman empire at Gallipoli. Also, around this time the 8th and 9th light horse regiment had a massive Australian rules football match in the sandy hills of Egypt, using camels and the boundary.

He started to develop health problems as the war ticked on, as well as going AWOL, seeming to lose interest in fighting for the military. On the 26 of October 1916, William went missing without a trace in Etaples.  He returned days later, and thankfully for him, unlike in the British army, where the punishment for leaving service was very severe and sometimes resulted in death, he got off relatively unscathed.

He suffered a swollen leg and sprained knee on the 13th of January, 1917 although it was deemed relatively mild. He pulled out of service from being sick on many numerous occasion, this is probably due to the absurdly awful conditions produced by the trenches. The combined factors of sweaty soldiers, rotting corpses, wet mud and faecal matter could produce every disease on the spectrum including but not limited to, trench foot, malaria, typhoid, trench fever and influenza.

At some point during the war, he switched from the 9th light horse regiment to the 2nd field artillery battalion, although there is no record of when this took place. William’s overall war effort was quite impressive and after the armistice was signed on the 11th November 1918, he would continue to live in the country he represented in the war for the rest of his life. As far as I can tell, he never suffered from shellshock/ ptsd or any other war-related mental or physical illness in his life after WW1.

William returned from to Australia on the 28th of march 1919, at the age of 24, he continued living normally and started working again as a mechanical engineer. He got married sometime later in his life although I was not able to find out whom to or when. He ended up having two children, Betty and Alan and he had six grandchildren, Ronald, Corallin, John, Colin, Margaret and Kevin. In 1967, at the age of 72, he applied for the Anzac Commemorative Medallion and the Lapel Badge for his effort in the Gallipoli Campaign, both medals were granted. On the 18th of August 1969, while surrounded by his family and friends, William died of causes I could not determine and was buried in a soldier’s grave in Centennial Park Cemetery, Adelaide.