Thomas HAMILTON

Regimental number3037
Place of birthDennistoun, Glasgow, Scotland
SchoolChryston Public School, New Glasgow, Scotland
Age on arrival in Australia15
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationFarmer
AddressCreek Road, Maryborough, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation20
Next of kinMother, Mrs Jeanie Munro Hamilton, Creek Road, Maryborough, Queensland
Enlistment date16 August 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name15th Battalion, 10th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/32/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Brisbane, Queensland, on board HMAT A69 Warilda on 5 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollGunner
Unit from Nominal Roll11th Field Artillery Brigade
FateDied of wounds 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death22
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 17), 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
156
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Jeanie HAMILTON, 'Millbrae', Bardon Estate, Paddington, Queensland. Native of Dennistoun, Glasgow, Scotland
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Joined 15th Bn, Moascar, 5 February 1916. Transferred to 47th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 3 March 1916. Taken on strength, 11th Field Artillery Brigade, 17 March 1916, mustered as Gunner and posted to 42nd Battery.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 1 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 10 June 1916.

Admitted to 12th Field Ambulance, 12 September 1916 (injury to skin); discharged to duty, 13 September 1916. Admitted to 13th Field Ambulance, 20 September 1916 (contusion); discharged to duty, 27 September 1916.

Died of wounds received in the field, 7 June 1917.

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