Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

"Eric Rupert Dibbs was born on a hot, late summer’s afternoon at his parents’ home “Boltibrook” in Lytton Street, North Sydney. The date was 9 March 1894. Eric was the first of five children to Sydney Reginald Dibbs (1867-1931), a senior clerk at Customs House, later Chief Inspector of Customs for New South Wales, and Jessie Emily Fletcher (1869-1937) of Maitland, NSW.

The family had a long association with Sydney’s northern harbour suburbs, living at Lavender Bay (“Sunnyside”, c.1894) then Mosman (“Woodlawn”, Cross Street, c.1916 and 29 Gordon Street, c.1918). Our man Dibbs would return to Cremorne and Mosman in the early 1920s.

Of his extended family, whose Sydney history dates to the arrival of master mariner Captain John Dibbs in 1821, we should highlight Eric’s great uncle, Sir Thomas Allwright Dibbs, general manager of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. In 1915, appalled at the carnage being wrought by the war, Sir Thomas Dibbs bequeathed to the government his estate “Graythwaite” as a convalescent hospital for sick and wounded soldiers.

It was at this fine North Sydney home, in the late 1940s, that a memorial plaque was erected in the entrance hall at Eric’s initiative..." - READ MORE LINK (mosman1914-1918.net)