Edward LAWLOR

Regimental number4211
Place of birthBurra, South Australia
ReligionRoman Catholic
OccupationBoiler makers assistant
AddressFlorence Street, Goodwood, South Australia
Marital statusMarried
Age at embarkation29
Height5' 2.5"
Weight126 lbs
Next of kinWife, Mrs E T Lawler, Florence Street, Goodwood, South Australia
Enlistment date14 September 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name10th Battalion, 13th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/27/4
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A30 Borda on 11 January 1916
FateNo details of fate entered on Nominal Roll
Age at death from cemetery records31
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
150
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: John and Julia LAWLER; husband of Ellen LAWLER, 32 Florence Street, Goodwood, South Australia. Native of Adelaide
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Allotted to and proceeded to join 50th Bn, Tel el Kebir, 29 February 1916. Posted to transport section, Railhead, France, 6 May 1916; appointed Driver, 7 May 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 5 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 12 June 1916.

Found guilty of drinking in a cafe in Amiens during prohibited hours, 18 March 1917: awarded 72 hours' Field Punishment No. 2.

Found guilty, 22 June 1917, of while on Active service, being in St Omer without a pass contrary to 2nd Army R[outine] O[rder] 663: awarded 168 hours' Field Punishment No. 2.

On leave to United Kingdom, 14 September 1917; rejoined unit from leave [date not recorded].

Killed in action, 18 October 1917.

Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal