How The Website Came To Be

Around the 100th anniversary of the Anzacs landing at Gallipoli, the Mount Lawley Society History and Archiving Subcommittee undertook a project to find out how many soldiers enlisted for World War I whilst they or their next of kin were living in what was, or is now known as, Mount Lawley in the years 1914-1918.

We found nearly 500 men and women who enlisted from the area. Over 380 of those were found in the National Archives of Australia, and the additional men and women were found via seven other sources.

That project provided the starting points for the stories of the men and women who served in the Army. We present here a brief outline of their military lives; their families and where they lived as well as their lives after the war.

They all suffered so much and in so many ways. There were times that we, as the researchers, cried and had sleepless nights. We began to know these people who went to war, and it became personal to us.

This remembrance from Sister Ernestine Wray (Jeffrey) of 18 Ebsworth St, Mount Lawley says it all:

Some History

At the beginning of World War One (WWI) the freshly minted Commonwealth of Australia had a population of approximately four and a half million people. As a consequence of our involvement in the conflict, 62,000 troops were killed and a further 155,000 wounded. Many of these wounds were life-altering or life-shortening in nature. A little-known fact is that in the decade following the end of the war a further 60,000 returned troops died -a truly staggering level of sacrifice by such a small population. Australia’s WWI losses, when extrapolated proportionally to Australia’s current 2024 population, would be approximately 310,000 killed and 930,000 wounded – a point well worth reflecting upon today.

ANZAC troops were widely recognised for their effectiveness throughout the cauldron of WWI. By 1918, and now under the Australian Commander Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, the ANZAC forces of the Australian Corps forged an outstanding reputation for combat effectiveness, typified by innovation, self-reliance, tenacity and an unwillingness to yield ground. Another little-known fact is that approximately 20% of all ground taken from the German forces in 1918 was taken by ANZAC forces – a truly impressive feat of arms achieved at great cost. Indeed, France’s Marshall Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander in 1918 noted (in 1919 shortly following the end of the war) “The greatest individual fighter of the war was the Australian” – high praise indeed but gained at an unimaginable price.

For this website, we have compiled information from both free-to-access and paid sources. Where it is free, we have provided links. Where it sits behind a paywall (Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com) we can provide source citations upon request. This applies especially to family associations and births, deaths, and marriages.

We acknowledge retired Police Historian Peter Conole who researched some of our soldiers further, including some that we are presenting here. Peter focusses in more detail on how the soldiers fitted into the military actions of the day. These will be linked to the articles that were published in the MLS newsletters.

We thank the amazing members of the History and Archiving Subcommittee who did the research; Deb Olle, Beth McKechnie, Cath and Steve Dean and those who supported the project; Phill Matson, Sheila Robinson, Roger Elmitt, Mary Basley and Roger Cooper.

As there are so many soldiers and the time it takes to research, we are dividing the website up into sections. We will publish section by section.