Septimus GLANVILLE

Regimental number5102
Place of birthNowra, New South Wales
Other NamesSeptimus Douglas
SchoolCamden Grammar School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationFarmer
AddressCooyar, via Oakey, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation24
Height5' 8.5"
Next of kinMother, Mrs E M Glanville, Nowra, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil (previously rejected for enlistment on account of varicole); Nil
Enlistment date21 July 1915
Place of enlistmentBrisbane, Queensland
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name9th Battalion, 16th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/26/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A16 Star of Victoria on 31 March 1916
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll49th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death26
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 29), 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
148
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Elizabeth (d. 13 August 1920) GLANVILLE. Native of Nowra, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsBrothers: 39 Pte Charles Henry GLANVILLE MM, 5th Light Horse Regiment, returned to Australia, 7 January 1919; second brother not yet identified.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Disembarked Port Said, 5 May 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 7 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 14 June 1916. Taken on strength, 49th Bn, 13 August 1916.

Wounded in action, 1 September 1916 (gun shot wound, right shoulder); admitted to 49th Casualty Clearing Station, 5 September 1916; transferred by Ambulance train to 4th General Hospital, Camiers, 5 September 1916; to England, 21 September 1916, and admitted to 3rd Southern General Hospital, Oxford, 22 September 1916; to 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Harefield, 14 December 1916; to No 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 4 January 1917; to infantry Drafts Depot, 9 February 1917.

Found guilty, 7 February 1917, of breaking camp and being absent without leave from 7.30 am, 2 February, to 8.30 am, 6 February 1917: awarded 5 days' Field Punishment No 2 and forfeited 10 days' pay.

Proceeded overseas to France, 25 February 1917; rejoined unit, 20 March 1917.

Reported missing believed killed in action, Belgium, 7 June 1917. Buried; grave subsequently lost.

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