The AIF Project

William FOX

Regimental number579
Place of birthKelso, Roxburgh, Scotland
Age on arrival in Australia27
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationLabourer
Address213 Rose Street, Darlington, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation33
Height5' 2.5"
Weight150 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs Jane Fox, 217 Roxburgh Street, Kelso, Scotland
Previous military serviceServed in the Royal Marines for 12 years; service completed.
Enlistment date18 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name30th Battalion, C Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/47/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A72 Beltana on 9 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll30th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 19 September 1917
Place of death or woundingFrance
Age at death35
Age at death from cemetery records35
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 23), Belgium

The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.

The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936.

Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
117
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Adam and Jane FOX. Natove of Kelso, Scotland
Family/military connectionsBrother: Robert FOX, who served four years in the Navy.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Disembarked Suez, 11 December 1915.

Found guilty, 10 February 1916, of urinating in Company Lines: awarded 7 days' Punishment Drill.

Appointed Temporary Corporal, 2 March 1916; Corporal, 1 April 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 16 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 23 June 1916. Promoted Temporary Sergeant, 24 July 1916. Found guilty, 13 September 1916, of conduct to the prejudice of good order and Military Discipline: severely reprimanded. Promoted Sergeant, 1 August 1916.

Found guilty, Field General Court Martial, 9 January 1917, of whilst on active service drunkenness on 27th and 28th November 1916: pleaded 'Not Guilty'; reduced to the ranks.

Killed in action, France, 19 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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