John Bland BARTHOLOMEW

Regimental number2725
Place of birthMaryborough, Queensland
SchoolState School, Maryborough, Queensland
Other trainingMaryborough Technical College, Queensland
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationCarpenter
AddressMaryborough, Queensland
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation29
Next of kinFather, J S Bartholomew, Maryborough, Queensland
Previous military serviceNil
Enlistment date10 August 1915
Date of enlistment from Nominal Roll10 August 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name15th Battalion, 9th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/32/2
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A33 Ayrshire on 1 September 1915
Rank from Nominal RollSergeant
Unit from Nominal Roll47th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 7 June 1917
Place of death or woundingMessines, Belgium
Age at death30.10
Age at death from cemetery records30
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), 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
143
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: James S. and Ellen BARTHOLOMEW, Maryborough, Queensland
Family/military connectionsBrother: [4282] Lt George BARTHOLOMEW, 5th Division Artillery, returned to Australia, 20 July 1919.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Gallipoli, 4 November 1915; joined Bn at Gallipoli, 13 November 1915. Disembarked Alexandria ex Mudros, 29 December 1915 (general Gallipoli evacuation).

Transferred to 47th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 3 March 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 2 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 9 June 1916. Appointed Lance Corporal, 3 July 1916; Corporal, 9 August 1916.

Admitted to 3rd Australian Field Ambulance, 27 November 1916 (exhaustion); transferred to 12th General Hospital, Rouen, 28 November 1916; discharged to 2nd Convalescent Depot, Rouen, 2 December 1916 (oedema feet); to Base Details, 6 December 1916. Admitted to 18th General Hospital, Camiers, 29 December 1916 (suspected mumps); discharged to Base Details, 18 January 1917; rejoined unit, 27 January 1917.

Promoted Sergeant, 19 April 1917.

Killed in action, 7 June 1917. Buried 750 yards E. of Messines, Belgium.

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