Regimental number | 485 |
Place of birth | Catford, London, England |
School | Crowthorne Church School, Berkshire; Higher Grade Haselrigge Rd, Clapham, England |
Age on arrival in Australia | 20 |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Farm labourer |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 22 |
Height | 5' 10" |
Weight | 148 lbs |
Next of kin | Mrs Julia Flemming, 37 Holdenby Road, Crofton Park, London, England |
Previous military service | Served as a Trumpeter for 4.6 years in the Royal Army Service Corps. |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Bugler |
Unit name | 3rd Battalion C Company |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/20/1 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Lance Sergeant |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 3rd Battalion |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | Passchendaele, Ypres, Belgium |
Age at death | 25 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), 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 | 38 |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterreanean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 5 April 1915. Appointed Lance Sergeant, 7 April 1915. Wounded in action (slightly), 21 May 1915. Admitted to 1st Casualty Clearing Station, 1 August 1915 (diarrhoea); transferred by Fleet Sweeper to Malta, 1 August 1915; admitted to Military Hospital, Cottonera, 5 August 1915; transferred to St Patrick's Hospital, 17 August 1915. Embarked for England, 7 September 1915; admitted to 1st Southern General Hospital, Birmingham, 19 September 1915. Taken on Permanent Establishment of No. 2 Command Depot, Weymouth, 25 October 1916. Proceeded overseas to France to reinforce 3rd Bn, 27 May 1917; rejoined 3rd Bn, 10 June 1917. Missing in action, Belgium, 5 October 1917; Court of Enquiry, 20 March 1918, confirmed fate as 'killed in action'. Statement by 2753 Pte R. NORTHROP, 3rd Bn, 20 March 1918: 'No. 485 Sergeant R.H. Sedman, No. 1 Platoon, "A" Company, 3rd Battalion, was my platoon sergeant. He was with the platoon at the commencement of the attack, east of Ypres on the 4th October. I was wounded very early in the attack, but was not carried away for 36 hours. Just before being carried away, one of my mates in the same platoon, Pte F. Charters, was brought down wounded to the dressing station (advanced) where I was, by two other men of the platoon, Pte George Matich and another. They asked me if I had seen Sgt Sedman as none of the remaining men of the platoon had seen him since the opening of the attack. Knowing the nature of the fighting it is, in my opinion, extremely unlikely that Sgt Sedman was taken prisoner, also the heavy rains of the following day would make it very difficult for the searchers to find the men killed in action.' Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |