Edgar Gilbert TAYLOR

Regimental number722
Place of birthLowan, Victoria
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationSalesman
AddressGerang, Dimboola, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation22
Height6' 0"
Weight158 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs A Taylor, 22 Denmark Hill Road, Upper Hawthorn, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the Naval Brigade for 2 years.
Enlistment date24 August 1914
Place of enlistmentMelbourne, Victoria
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name7th Battalion, F Company
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/24/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A20 Hororata on 19 October 1914
Rank from Nominal RollLance Corporal
Unit from Nominal Roll7th Battalion
Other details from Roll of Honour CircularEnlisted 24 August 1914. Appointed Lance Corporal, 13 May 1917.
FateKilled in Action 20 September 1917
Place of death or woundingMenin Road, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death25
Age at death from cemetery records25
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe 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
51
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 5 April 1915. Admitted to 7th Field Ambulance, 4 May 1915 (diarrhoea); discharged, 9 May 1915. Admitted to 2nd Australian Stationary Hospital, Lemnos, 22 June 1915 (pleurisy); discharged to duty, 3 July 1915. Detailed to permanent Beach Party, Gallipoli, 8 July 1915. Admitted to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 18 July 1915 (perforating wound, foot), and transferred to Fleet Sweeper; disembarked Malta, 28 July 1915, and admitted to St Andrew's Hospital. Transferred to All Saints' Camp, 28 August 1915; embarked for England, 16 September 1915; marched in to Australian Intermediate Depot, Abbeywood, 29 November 1915. Found guilty, 22 November 1915, of being absent without leave, 20-22 November 1915: awarded 72 hours' detention and forfeited 6 days' pay. Admitted to Delhi Hospital, Perham Downs, 25 July 1915 (laryngitis); discharged to duty, 5 August 1916. Proceeded overseas to France, 29 August 1916; rejoined 7th Bn, 17 September 1916. Mentioned in Despatches, 6 October 1916, 'for participation in a very successful raid on the enemy trenches on 30th of September 1916'.

Found guilty, 28 November 1916, of being absent without leave, 0900-2200, 27 November 1916: awarded 28 days' Field Punishment No. 2 and forfeited 1 day's pay.

Appointed Lance Corporal, 13 May 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, TAYLOR Edgar Gilbert