Regimental number | 284 |
Place of birth | Glasgow, Scotland |
Religion | Presbyterian |
Occupation | Labourer |
Address | 405 Errard Street South, Ballarat, Victoria |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 30 |
Height | 5' 10" |
Weight | 127 lbs |
Next of kin | Mother, Mrs Jane Taylor, 21 Main Street, Rainsford, Falkirk, Scotland |
Previous military service | Served in the Scottish Borderers for 12 years. |
Enlistment date | |
Rank on enlistment | Colour SGT |
Unit name | 8th Battalion, C Company |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 23/25/1 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board Transport A24 Benalla on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Private |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 8th Battalion |
Recommendations (Medals and Awards) |
Mention in Despatches Awarded, and gazetted, 'London Gazette', second Supplement, No. 30448 (28 December 1917); 'Commonwealth Gazette' No. 57 (18 April 1918). |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Age at death from cemetery records | 34 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 54 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Parents: Duncan and Jane TAYLOR; husband of Mary TAYLOR, 98 Lumby Stret, Grangemouth, Scotland. Native of Falkirk, Scotland |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front Embarked from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 5 April 1915. Appointed Regimental Sergeant Major, 9 May 1915. Admitted to 2nd Field Ambulance, 20 July 1915 (pyrexia), and transferred to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, and thence to Fleet Sweeper. Discharged to duty from 28th Casualty Clearing Station, 1 August 1915; rejoined Bn, 2 August 1915. Admitted to No. 2 Field Ambulance Camp Sarpi, Mudros, 9 November 1915 (appendicitis); transferred to No. 3 Australian General Hospital, Lemnos, 9 November 1915; to Lowland Casualty Clearing Station, 2 December 1915; transferred by HS 'Soudan' to Malta, 23 December 1915, and admitted to Riscoli Military Hospital, 26 December 1915. Embarked on HS 'Valdivia', 21 January 1916; admitted to No. 3 Auxiliary Hospital, Heliopolis, Egypt, 21 January 1916; discharged to duty, 26 January 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 26 April 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 30 April 1916. Killed in action, Belgium, 20 September 1917. Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal |