Banner 1 Moreland Remembers World War I 1914 - 1918
Banner 1 Moreland remembers World War I 1914 - 1918
World War I broke out in August 1914 after years of increasing tensions between the major powers in Europe. As a former colony, loyalty to the British Empire was strong in Australia, and it joined the war as an ally to Great Britain.
The Allies (Great Britain, France, Russia and Commonwealth countries including Australia) fought against the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, Hungary and other countries including Turkey).
Approximately 5,000 men from the suburbs of Brunswick and Coburg fought over the next four years in places such as Turkey, France, Belgium and parts of the Middle East. About 700 of these men never returned.
This exhibition explores the local experience of the War and how this has shaped our community today.
Please note: this exhibition contains images of deceased people.
Funding support towards this project has been provided by the Australian Government Anzac Centenary Local Grant Program
Support is also acknowledged from the Victorian Government and the Victorian Veterans Council – Anzac Centenary Community Grants.
Banner 2 Moreland and the War
When war was declared, Australia was a new nation with a population of five million people. Only 13 years had passed since the separate state colonies became one nation at Federation. Melbourne was the home of Australia’s national Parliament.
The area that is now the City of Moreland was made up of the City of Brunswick, the Town of Coburg, and parts of the Shire of Broadmeadows. Brunswick was an industrial area with a large brickworks and many textile factories. Coburg and surrounds were occupied by farms. The population was largely British in origin, with a significant number of Irish people in Brunswick. The population of the combined area was around 50,000 – about one-third of today’s local population.
When the war started there was considerable support and some excitement. By 1917, there were also calls to change the names of Coburg and Brunswick because they had German origins.
Banner 3 Local recruitment
When the War started, people thought it would only last for a few months.
Many of those who were British-born or first-generation Australian were quick to volunteer to fight.
People enlisted (joined the armed services) for different reasons: a chance for travel and adventure; loyalty to England (the ‘Mother Country’); a sense of duty or social pressure. For many men, the six shillings a day that soldiers were paid was considered an acceptable wage.
Local men mainly joined up at the Brunswick Recruitment Office at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute, or at the Melbourne Town Hall. Most men who enlisted were aged in their twenties, but some were only 18.
Banner 4 Training for War
Broadmeadows was home to the major army training camp for the Australian Imperial Force.
The land was previously known as Mornington Park. It was a wide field, suitable for military practice, including training for the Light Horse regiments. It is the current location of the Maygar Army Barracks on Camp Road in Broadmeadows.
To reach the camp, soldiers marched from Victoria Barracks in St Kilda Road and headed north up Sydney Road, only resting near Fawkner Cemetery. The camp soon became a popular location for family outings on Sundays.
Soldiers slept in tents and food was basic. Training was hard, but it did not prepare soldiers for a modern war with machine guns, gas, shells and aeroplanes – technology that did not exist in previous wars.
Some men only completed a few months training before departing on troopships from Port Melbourne.
Once overseas, some soldiers received further training in Egypt.
Banner 5 The Foxcroft brothers
Amelia Ricketts and her husband William Foxcroft, a blacksmith, lived at 80 Cameron Street,Coburg with their seven children. Three of their sons, William, Arthur and Harold, enlisted in the War.
William (34) was working as a telegraph linesman in South Australia before leaving for the War. He served in the 6th Field Artillery Brigade, which fought largely on the battlefields of the Western Front. He returned to Australia in 1919.
Arthur (30), a bricklayer, was wounded in the right hand in 1916, shot in the leg in 1917, and was sent home.
Harold (27) was a carpenter and a driver. He served at Gallipoli in 1915 with the 9th Army Service Corps, where he was crushedbetween two mules and damaged his back. He was sent to England to recover, before returning to Australia. He died in Echuca in 1918 of afflictions sustained while on active service.
Banner 6 The Turkish community
Many Turkish people who came to live in Australia have relatives who fought against Australian soldiers in the War.
The region now known as Turkey formed part of the Triple Alliance to fight against the Russian Empire, responding to long-standing historical tensions between the two empires.
Moreland resident Cemal Akderniz’s three great-uncles served as Turkish soldiers in the War. They left home and never returned.
Later in the 20th century, Turkish migrants to Melbourne were first housed in the old Broadmeadows Army Training Camp. A major supporter of this migration plan was the Returned Services League of Victoria.
Many Turks settled in the suburbs of Moreland. One of the first Turkish restaurants in Brunswick was called ‘Gelibolu’ (the Turkish word for Gallipoli).
Banner 7 Aboriginal service in the War
Moreland is on the traditional Country of the Wurundjeri willam clan. Aboriginal people have fought in tribal wars, in frontier wars against European colonisers, and in virtually all of Australia’s overseas conflicts since then, including World War I.
Until 1949, people were not allowed to serve for Australia if ‘not substantially of European origin’. Despite this, around 1,000 Indigenous Australians proudly served in World War I.
Upon returning to Australia, Aboriginal soldiers experienced discrimination. They often did not receive a war pension and few were granted land through the soldier settlement scheme. They were even banned from going into hotels in some places with their mates from the war.
Many fought against this discrimination, including Taungurung man Albert Franklin. In 1928 Mr Franklin returned his war medals in protest. His granddaughter is a Moreland community member.
Banner 8 The Murray brothers
Brothers Herbert and William Murray are two of many Aboriginal people who served in World War I. Today, some of their relatives are Moreland community members.
The Murray brothers were born on Gunditjmara Country in western Victoria. They were moved to the Lake Tyers Aboriginal Reserve in Gippsland before enlisting for service.
Herbert served as a tunneller during his military service between 1917 and 1919. He worked in a team that constructed complex tunnel systems underground before he was wounded in action in France (gassed). Herbert was discharged as medically unfit but the Australian government refused to pay him a war pension.
William Murray served in the 5th Battalion from 1916. He was killed in action while fighting at the Menin Gate in Belgium in 1917 and has no known grave. Both brothers are listed on the honour roll at Lake Tyers.
Banner 9 The battlefields
Men from the Moreland area fought and died in many of the worst battles of World War I.
These include battles at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast (1915) and on the Western Front –including Pozières (France, 1916), Fromelles (France, 1916), Passchendaele (Belgium, 1917), Bullecourt (France, 1917) and Villers-Bretonneux (France, 1918).
The Western Front was theline of trenches stretching from the coast of Belgium to the Swiss border that marked the German advance west.
Other battles occurred in the Middle East, such as Beersheba (Egypt, 1917).
Trench warfare was freezing, muddy, smelly, loud and terrifying. The soldiers suffered many diseases and conditions in the trenches, including 'trench foot', and many died of illness.
For most of the War, Australians were under British command. This changed when General John Monash from Melbourne took command of Australian troops in May 1918. Monash improved the morale of Australian soldiers and helped win several important battles.
Banner 10 The Gallipoli campaign and William Symons VC
On 25 April 1915 Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. This day is remembered each year as Anzac Day.
Many local soldiers were at the landing, including William John Symons (26), a grocer’s assistant from 8 Burchett Street, Brunswick. At least 12 men from Coburg and 14 men from Brunswick died on the first day, including Joseph Rupert Balfe (25), the son of the then Mayor of Brunswick.
The Anzacs were sent to Gallipoli by British command to secure the Dardanelles Strait for Russian shipping, with an aim to eventually control Constantinople (Istanbul).
In August 1915, when the Turks were advancing, Symons retook an important trench under heavy fire from three directions. He then quickly built a timber barricade, protecting the trench from further attack.
He was awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest award given for ‘gallantry in the face of the enemy’. Upon his return home, Brunswick held a civic service in his honour. He then returned to the Western Front. He died in London in 1945.
The Anzac troops withdrew from Gallipoli in December 1915, after the death of over 11,000 Australian and New Zealand men.
Banner 11 Women and the War
Thousands of Australian women volunteered their time to the war effort at home and abroad.
Two thousand Australian women served overseas in the Australian Army Nursing Service as nurses, ward assistants and masseuses. The Red Cross also sent 30 women overseas as part of Voluntary Aid Detachments.
Women took on many paid roles that had been mainly performed by men, such as working on farms, in factories and as bank clerks.
Thousands were also active political campaigners and fundraisers. Through the Red Cross and other organisations, local women spent countless hours baking, knitting and creating comfort parcels of items such as food and socks for soldiers. Women also sent thousands of letters to those serving overseas to keep up the soldiers’ morale.
As the ones who often bore the brunt of the terrible news that their husband or son had been killed, women showed enormous courage in keeping their families and communities together during wartime.
Banner 12 Sister Alice Kitchin
Australian Army Nursing Service nurses attended to an endless stream of sick and wounded soldiers, often in terrible conditions, without the aid of modern medicines such as antibiotics.
Sister Alice Kitchin, whose mother lived in Brunswick, trained as a nurse at Melbourne Hospital (now the Royal Melbourne Hospital) and enlisted in September 1914. Alice was a foundation member of the Australian Army Nursing Service Reserve in Victoria.
She was not prepared for the extent of death and the severity of wounds she faced when nursing casualties of Gallipoli. On 3 May 1915, not long after the Anzac landing, she wrote: It is all too dreadful and every day we hear of someone we knew being killed or wounded.
Alice also served in France, where she nursed wounded men on the Western Front. She returned to Australia in 1919, and moved to Edithvale in the 1930s.
Banner 13: The home front
During wartime, feelings of loyalty to Britain were high and some Germans living in Moreland had their businesses attacked.
Many Australian residents born in Germany, Austria, Turkey or Bulgaria were detained in camps in Victoria as ‘enemy aliens’ for the duration of the War.
People were careful not to waste resources that could be put towards the war effort. As a wartime measure, hotels introduced ‘early closing’ at 6 pm.
A major activity at home was fundraising to support the war effort. Many organisations and schools were actively involved.
The Coburg Cowboys, a group of 20 local boys who performed on horseback, often appeared in fundraising carnivals around Melbourne.
People sold badges, held concerts, ran raffles, organised sock-knitting competitions and countless other events to raise money. It was reported that ‘the prettiest and youngest of collectors’ sold a kiss on Sydney Road for 2s. 6d. on Belgian Flag Day.
Banner 14: War-weariness
As the war dragged on there were fewer able-bodied men at home and the death toll overseas was mounting. The streets were full of women wearing black mourning clothes.
Thousands of families were enduring the long wait for news of their relatives’ fates on the battlefields of Europe.
Shortages at home of items such as sugar and paper were also being felt.
Soldiers often returned from the war with terrible injuries, diseases, or ‘shell-shock’ (a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Many of these men were cared for at the Caulfield Military Hospital. An infectious diseases hospital for soldiers still in training also operated from the Wiseman family mansions, Ashleigh and Sawbridgeworth, in Glenroy from 1915 to 1917.
People started to despair that the War would never end.
Brunswick resident Maude O’Loughlin’s three sons went to war and two were killed in action. She lost her husband shortly after in an accident.
Banner 15 The peace movement
Many people around the world were opposed to the War.
Some of these people were connected to the peace movement, women’s groups, trade unions and socialist groups.
Some Australians did not believe they should fight in a British war. Others believed that it was not right to fight in any war – that it was wrong to kill, and that peaceful solutions should be found. Men who chose not to enlist for these reasons were known as ‘conscientious objectors’. Some of these men served in non-combat roles such as stretcher bearers.
Many people considered that conscientious objectors were ‘shirking their responsibilities’. Women often sent these men a white feather – a symbol of cowardice.
John Curtin, Brunswick resident and future Australian Labor prime minister, was a conscientious objector during World War I. He was charged with causing ‘disaffection to His Majesty’.
Banner 16 Bella Guérin
The suffragettes were part of a global movement fighting for women’s right to vote (also known as women’s suffrage). Many suffragettes opposed the War and fought for peace.
Julia Margaret (Bella) Guérin was a well-known suffragette. She was the first female university graduate in Australia, a socialist and a Principal of Brunswick Girls’ High School.
She was a key member of Vida Goldstein’s Women’s Political Association and led the Labor Women’s Anti-Conscription Fellowship campaign in the lead up to the nationwide vote on conscription in 1916 and 1917. Anti-conscription organisations held regular rallies on the Yarra Bank, among other activities.
Following this, Bella became the vice-president of the Labor Party’s Women’s Central Organising Committee.
Bella is remembered as an astute and witty social commentator. She is also known by her married surnames, firstly Halloran, then Lavender.
She died in 1923.
Banner 17 Australian conscription debate
As the death-toll rose and the government failed to meet the high quota of recruits set by the British War Office, Labor Prime Minister Billy Hughes proposed that unmarried men aged 18-26should be conscripted (forced by the government) to serve overseas.
The conscription debate bitterly divided Australia along the lines of class, politics and religious belief. Protestants and the middle class tended to vote ‘Yes’. Catholics (who were mainly Irish) and the working class were more likely to vote ‘No’.
Conscription was put to a national public vote twice, in 1916 and 1917, and was defeated both times. In 1917, the ‘No’ vote increased.
The majority of serving soldiers also voted against conscription.
Banner 18 Moreland debates conscription
Conscription was fiercely debated in the Moreland area.
Anti-conscriptionists had a solid following in Moreland due mostly to its large working-class and Catholic population. St Ambrose’s Hallwas their headquarters in Brunswick.
Dr Daniel Mannix, the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne had a close association with the Catholic people of Brunswick and Coburg. He claimed that the war was simply a ‘trade war’ without divine sanction or moral justification.
Councillor Phillips (Mayor of Brunswick) and Mr Hickford (President of Coburg’s National Federation branch) were outraged by these comments.
The streets of Brunswick and Coburg became sites of conflict between the two sides. Meetings were held, and signs were hung on shop fronts and trailed behind cars. People also debated this topic on the streets. In 1918 a group of anti-conscriptionists rallied outside Pentridge Prison for the release of socialist Adela Pankhurst.
Even though the overall vote in Victoria for the 1916 Referendum was a narrow ‘Yes’ majority, around 58 per cent of Moreland residents voted ‘No’.