Richard Clive MANDERS

Regimental number7107
Place of birthWaterford, Ireland
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationOrchardist
AddressGolden Grove, Albany, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation23
Height5' 11.5"
Weight150 lbs
Next of kinFather, Henry P Manders, Barrone Court, Goring, Oxfordshire, England
Previous military serviceNil (previously enlisted , but discharged 8 April 1916, on account of 'impaired foot, operated')
Enlistment date13 September 1916
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll12 September 1915
Place of enlistmentBlackboy Hill, Western Australia
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name16th Battalion, 23rd Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/33/5
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia, on board HMAT A35 Berrima on 23 December 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll16th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 August 1917
Age at death from cemetery records20
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
81
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Captain Gerald and Maud VILLIERS-STUART,Richmond, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, Ireland. True name VILLIERS-STUART (served as MANDERS)
Other details

War service: Western Front

Embarked Fremantle, 23 December 1916. Failed to re-embark Cape Town, South Africa: awarded 168 hours' detention and forfeited a total of 11 days' pay, 17 January 1917. Re-embarked Cape Town on board HMAT 'Demosthenes', 29 January 1917; disembarked Plymouth, England, 3 March 1917; marched in to 4th Training Bn, Codford, 9 March 1917.

Proceeded overseas to France, 9 July 1917; taken on strength, 16th Bn, 27 July 1917.

Killed in action, 7 August 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

Will left deferred pay and 'all personable & portable effects that I may be in possession of during Death' to 'Isabel S. Power, 21 Wesley Rd., Rathgar, Dublin, Co. Dublin, Ireland, as a small token o& esteem of 3 years Friendship & Love.'
Miscellaneous detailsTrue name: Desmond Richard De La Poer VILLIERS-STUART