BLACKMORE, George Edward
| Service Number: | 85 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Staff Sergeant |
| Last Unit: | 3rd South Australian Bushmen's Contingent |
| Born: | St Johns Wood (Prospect) South Australia , 9 May 1874 |
| Home Town: | Adelaide, South Australia |
| Schooling: | St. Peter's College, Adelaide South Australia |
| Occupation: | Farmer |
| Died: | Kroostadt, South Africa , 16 October 1952, aged 78 years, cause of death not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: | Norwood Football Club War Veterans |
Boer War Service
| 1 Oct 1899: | Involvement Staff Sergeant, 85, 3rd South Australian Bushmen's Contingent |
|---|
Great grandson
George Blackmore was my great grandfather. Family legend has it that he was the QMS in the Winburg Concentration camp in the Free State, where he met my great grandmother, Martha (Fourie?). After demobilisation to Australia at the end of the war he returned to South Africa and married Martha, a union of which I am ultimately prodigy. His brother Lewis Blackmore was a footballer for Essendon and landed and wounded at Gallipoli, was killed in Poziers. His other brothers Jack and Ed subsequently joined him in South Africa, I think his younger sister Eleanora died young. His daughter was named Eleanora Maria and was my grandmother.
Every generation of my forebears served in some way for queen and country, butI we learned from the sufferance and are now strongly represented by Quakers and objectors.
While I hold close the memory of their sacrifices, I am concerned that we forget (lest we).
I am now a special kind of Soutpiel, one with one foot on South African soil, and another now firmly planted in the red earth of WA. This conflict and the prodigy of those who served are oft forgot.
Lest we forget (those who served, and where we came from, and why we should never again).
Submitted 27 June 2019 by Julian Verbeek
Biography contributed by Robert Kearney
George Edward Blackmore, who died at Kronstadt, South Africa, on October 16, will perhaps be better remembered as a leading schoolboy athlete at St Peter's College round the 1890's. He was in the cricket eleven in February 1890.
Others who were with him who are happily with us, he says, are Dudley Hayward, Dr. Archie Campbell, Joe Edmunds and Dr. Frank Douglas.
George Blackmore made second score (23) in helping SPSC to win against PAC. Dudley Hayward was top scorer with 46. besides taking 5 wickets in each PAC innings a Junior in the PAC side was Clem Hill.
George Blackmore finished the season with a bowling average of 15 runs for each of 18 wickets.
It was as a footballer that perhaps George Blackmore was most pronounced. He always viewed with much pride his captaincy of the twenty in 1891 when SPSC beat PAC in the annual match, a circumstance which rarely, took place in those days.
Of the XX still with us is Harold Bickford and Dr. Douglas.
George Blackmore was made a school prefect in June, 1891; he rowed two in the four-oar race won by PAC in February, J891. W. H. Gosse (father of George Gosse. GC) was easily tne best runner that year, winning the College Cup with George Blackmore second; the latter won the 150 yards hurdles (one of three cup events).
In his final cricket innings against PAC in December,1891 he made top score (53) tor his side.
Faming in Africa
A Letter rom South Africa in July revealed that George Blackmore had been farming at Kronstadt in the Free State since the end of the Boer War. He was QMS in the 3rd Bushmen's Contingent (Capt. S. G. Hubbe, (O.C.), which left Port Adelaide in the Maplemore on March 7, 1900.
Lt C. M. Ives, DSO. Dr. F. J. Douglas, Cpl. J. R. Beck, Tpr. Charlie Rowell were with him. His heart gave him trouble some years ago and he was forced to rest.
Two of his brothers are still going strong in the mining world at Johannesburg—Jim (88 Sickle street Parkhurst Jo'burg) and Eddie. A younger brother, Jack, is farming at Clandulla, NSW.
George Blackmore visited Adelaide shortly after World War1 and saw much of a close school pal' Fred Downer. Jim G.' said to me yesterday that the reference to Mrs. Seager brought to his mind many things about that fine woman, as no doubt it revived something in thousands of other old diggers.
"She had the tact of six policemen and could do more with a smile than any woman I have ever known," he went on.
"She was forceful, but kindness was behind her every action. I remember picking a digger up in the gutter well under the wind, and after brushing him down I recognised him as an old soak of many years before.
'He had joined up, done his bit and did it well, but . . 'I was telling Mrs. Seager about it some time after and typical of her utterances, she said. 'Ah, poor old . . ., he isnt really, a bad chap, you know.' ''
Out Among The People By VOX (1952, November 7). The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), , p. 4. Retrieved August 5, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47519589
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