Regimental number | 1853 |
Place of birth | Goulburn, New South Wales |
School | East Goulburn, New South Wales |
Religion | Church of England |
Occupation | Labourer |
Address | May Street, Goulburn East, New South Wales |
Marital status | Single |
Age at embarkation | 25 |
Height | 5' 9" |
Weight | 150 lbs |
Next of kin | Father, William Cunningham, May Street, Goulburn East, New South Wales |
Previous military service | Nil |
Enlistment date | |
Place of enlistment | Goulburn, New South Wales |
Rank on enlistment | Private |
Unit name | 6th Light Horse Regiment, 13th Reinforcement |
AWM Embarkation Roll number | 10/11/3 |
Embarkation details | Unit embarked from Sydney, New South Wales, on board HMAT A60 Aeneas on |
Rank from Nominal Roll | Gunner |
Unit from Nominal Roll | 3rd Field Artillery Brigade |
Fate | Killed in Action |
Place of death or wounding | France |
Age at death | 27 |
Age at death from cemetery records | 27 |
Place of burial | No known grave |
Commemoration details | The 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 | 12 |
Miscellaneous information from cemetery records | Commemorated in Goulburn General Cemetery, New South Wales. Photo: Peter Dennis. Parents: William and Sarah CUNNINGHAM, 'Arundel', May Street, East Goulburn, New South Wales |
Other details |
War service: Egypt, Western Front Taken on strength, 6th Light Horse Regiment, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Maadi, 17 January 1916. Taken on strength, 2nd Reserve Regiment, 1 March 1916. Taken on strength, 25th Howitzer Brigade, 28 March 1916, and posted to 114th Battery. Transferred to 5th Divisional Ammunition Column, 4 May 1916. Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 19 June 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 25 June 1916. Transferred to 115th Battery, 7 July 1916; to 3rd Fiueld Artillery Brigade, 2 April 1917. Killed in action, Belgium, 26 October 1917. Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal |
Sources | NAA: B2455, CUNNINGHAM Roy Fergus |