The AIF Project

William Matthew PARTRIDGE

Regimental number2758
Place of birthPetersham, New South Wales
SchoolPetersham Public School, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationPrinter
Address5 Dowling Street, Arncliffe, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Next of kinFather, J Partridge, 5 Dowling Street, Arncliffe, Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date2 August 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name17th Battalion, 6th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/34/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A14 Euripides on 2 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollPrivate
Unit from Nominal Roll55th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 26 September 1917
Place of death or woundingPolygon Wood, Ypres, Belgium
Age at death26
Age at death from cemetery records27
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
161
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James and Catherine PARTRIDGE, 9 Dowling Street, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 55th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 16 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 29 June 1916.

Admitted to 3rd Stationary Hospital, Rouen, 12 November 1916 (cellulitis, right hand); transferred to England, 14 November 1916, and admitted to 1st London General Hospital, Camberwell, 17 November 1916. Discharged to furlough, 9 December 1916, to report to No. 1 Command Depot, Perham Downs, 27 December 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 12 January 1917; rejoined unit, 17 January 1917.

Killed in action, 26 September 1917.

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

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