The AIF Project

Alexander STUART

Regimental number7877
Place of birthBalmain, New South Wales
SchoolBurwood Public School, Burwood, New South Wales
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationButcher
AddressLucas Road, Burwood, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation26
Height5' 4.5"
Weight144 lbs
Next of kinFather, D Stuart, Lucas Road, Burwood, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed for three years Royal Australian Field Artillery, Victoria Barracks, Sydney.
Enlistment date2 November 1915
Place of enlistmentNational Park, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentDriver
Unit nameField Artillery Brigade 5, Brigade Ammunition Column
AWM Embarkation Roll number13/33/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A45 Bulla on 25 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll5th Field Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 23 July 1917
Place of death or woundingBelgium
Age at death27
Age at death from cemetery records27
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
14
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Duncan and Mary STUART, 'Logan Brae', Hill End, New South Wales. Native of Balmain, New South Wales
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Embarked Sydney, 25 November 1915; disembarked Suez, 2 January 1916.

Transferred to 20th Battery, Moascar, 10 March 1916.

Promoted Temporary Bombardier, and confirmed in that rank same day, 10 March 1916.

Embarked Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, France, 25 March 1916.

Transferred to 22nd Field Artillery Brigade, 13 May 1916.

Promoted Corporal, 20 November 1916.

Admitted to 12 General Hospital, Rouen, 28 November 1916 (not yet diagnosed); transferred to No 2 Convalescent Depot, 5 December 1916 (bronchitis); to Base Depot, 13 December 1916; rejoined unit, in the field, 24 December 1916.

Transferred to 13th Battery, 5th Field Artillery Brigade, 27 January 1917.

Promoted Sergeant, 1 June 1917.

On leave, 15 June 1917; rejoined unit from leave, 30 June 1917.

Killed in action, 23 July 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, STUART Alexander

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