The City of Greater Bendigo has created a website for next year's Anzac Day centenary celebrations. Today we continue a series showcasing the website...
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A HORSHAM man killed in action in Belgium during World War I never saw his baby son, who was born when his father was overseas.
William Christopher Smith was born in Horsham on March 12, 1887.
He was one of three children of a single mother and was taken into care as a Ward of the State in 1891.
William was eventually sent to live with a foster family in Glenlyon and attended the primary school there.
In 1903 he travelled to work in Leongatha and was working there at the outbreak of World War I.
William enlisted at Leongatha in May 1916, was sent to Broadmeadows Military Camp in the open area between Broadmeadows and Campbellfield and was eventually attached to the A Company, 38th Battalion, in Bendigo.
On June 12, 1916, he married Lilly Eveline Garvie at the Presbyterian Church in Leongatha and after the wedding the newlyweds left on the train for Melbourne.
On June 20 the battalion sailed for Europe on the HMAS Runic via the Cape of Good Hope and the Cape Verde Islands.
The battalion reached Plymouth on August 10 and entrained to Salisbury Plain in the south of England near Stonehenge.
William wrote to this brother-in-law about his time in England and it is clear he was not impressed.
He wrote, “I would not like to live here, give me sunny Australia, and the people are a very poor lot, skinny lot of things”.
After leave in London, William and his comrades began training and in October 1916 were inspected by King George the 5th.
In November the battalion embarked for France.
William saw action in France and Belgium and had several periods of hospitalisation after being gassed in June 1917 (possibly during the Battle of Messines).
He wrote in his letters that the people “back home” could have no idea what the troops were going through and that the sad time would be when the war was over and the “boys are returning and the missing ones are not there”.
In October 1917 the 38th Battalion took part in the Battle of Passchendale and it was after this that William was reported as missing.
He was eventually listed as killed in action on October 13, 1917.
Private William Christopher Smith is buried at the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium and is listed on the Honour Roll at the Australian War Memorial. He is also remembered on the War Memorial at Leongatha and the Honour Board for the (now closed) Glenlyon Primary School.
William was survived by his widow Lily and a son, Bill, who was born when his father was overseas.
I have taken the information from his service record, the War Diaries and from the book The 38th Battalion AIF by Eric Fairey.
Source: Judith Long
More at www.anzaccentenarybendigo.com.au/Home