The AIF Project

Cecil Brindley CALVER

Regimental number7564
Place of birthParramatta, New South Wales
SchoolAll Saints Church of England Day School, Petersham, New South Wales
ReligionChurch of England
OccupationCommercial artist
Address125 Westbourne Street, Petersham, Sydney, New South Wales
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation25
Height5' 7"
Weight138 lbs
Next of kinMother, Mrs C A A Calver, 125 Westbourne Street, Petersham, Sydney, New South Wales
Previous military serviceServed in the Militia.
Enlistment date5 July 1915
Place of enlistmentLiverpool, New South Wales
Rank on enlistmentGunner
Unit nameField Artillery Brigade 5, Battery 15
AWM Embarkation Roll number13/33/1
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A34 Persic on 18 November 1915
Rank from Nominal RollGunner
Unit from Nominal Roll5th Field Artillery Brigade
FateKilled in Action 12 October 1917
Place of death or woundingPasschendaele, Ypres, Belgium
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
13
Miscellaneous information from
  cemetery records
Parents: Robert and Charlotte CALVER, 125 Westbourne Street, Petersham, New South Wales. Native of Paramatta, New South Wales
Family/military connectionsCousin: 1287 Pte Leonard Stevenson TAYLOR, 18th Bn, died of wounds, 22 October 1915.
Other details

War service: Egypt, Gallipoli, Western Front

Disembarked Suez, 21 December 1915.

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

Admitted to No. 1 Auxiliary Hospital, England, 20 May 1916; discharged from hospital, 31 July 1916.

Proceeded overseas to France, 11 September 1917; taken on strength, 2nd Divisional Ammunition Column, 20 September 1917; transferred to 5th Artillery Brigade, 24 September 1917, and taken on strength, 13th Battery.

Killed in action, Belgium, 12 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
SourcesNAA: B2455, CALVER Cecil Brindley

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