More photos from last week's Dead Man's Penny handover

Ryde District Historical Society's President Janice Eastment, MC for the afternoon

The Wallumetta Room
 at City of Ryde Library
was the venue for our handover of Henry Oscar Nelson's Memorial plaque
on Saturday 16 March 2013.


Judy & Phil Display The Weekly Times story

A local newspaper, The Weekly Times reported the event in both the week prior

 and the following week

    http://www.weeklytimes.com.au/

 

 

 

 

We were also very pleased to welcome Chanel 10 reporter, Mazoe Ford and cameraman who joined us for the afternoon.

Chanel 10 aired Mazoe Ford's coverage of the event during the 5pm news on Monday18 March 2013 under the title "Lost and found'!

Margaret, Richard, Angela, Kim, Judy, & Janice with Ryde City Mayor, Ivan Petch

 

We were also very grateful to Judy for bringing along family photos, medals & memorabilia

 for both Henry Oscar Nelson and his brother Frederick Andrew Nelson

and allowing us to make a photographic record of them

 for our project.

Henry Oscar Nelson's 'Dead man's penny' finally back with the Nelson family!

Wow! what a great afternoon we had.

On Saturday 16th March many members of the Ryde District Historical Society gathered with the community and Henry's great niece, Judy for the hand-over of Henry Oscar Nelson's 'dead man's penny'.

Kim presents Judy with Henry Oscar Nelson's Memorial Plaque

The event was the result of  the "penny" having been found in a box purchased at a garage sale more than twenty years ago by Lynne Crawford in Bingara, (in northern New South Wales). Lynne asked her neighbour to help research the owner of the plaque, and when it was discovered that Henry's address at the time of enlistment was Ryde, Lynne’s neighbour and researcher Helen Cornish contacted Angela Phippen at Ryde Library in the hope of returning the plaque to Henry’s family.

After some research of her own Angela passed the information on the Ryde District Historical Society, who she knew were researching the World War 1 servicemen and women from the Ryde district. The Society did have Henry Oscar on our list and in fact we were already working on his family as we had identified him as one of the missing soldiers who died at Fromelles.

So by a wonderful series of coincidences the Ryde goes to War project Coordinator, Kim Phillips was able to make contact with Henry's great niece, who described it as 'amazing to have it in my hand' and she thanked Lynne from Bingara 'for her selfless act and for going to the trouble of returning it to the family.'

The event was followed by afternoon tea where ANZAC biscuits were the main fare!
 More picture to come soon!

Welcome back to 2013 - we have some exciting things happening!

Our working group met recently to catch up on everyone’s progress and problems over the Christmas break.

Our research is progressing well, but the exciting news that has been evolving behind the scenes, is that we are soon to have an event connected to one of our Ryde soldiers.

The following ‘ Media Release’  has just been released and is added here for you all to share.

Henry Oscar Nelson
No. 728

 30^th Battalion

Source: Nelson Family Collection

  

WWI memorabilia found at garage sale

returned to family of lost Fromelles serviceman,

on Saturday 16 March 2013, 2pm, Ryde Library

On 17 July 1915, 19 year old Ryde lad Henry Nelson, equipped with a letter from his parents giving their permission, enlisted for service in the AIF.

One year and two days later he was killed in action during what has been described as the worstnight in Australian history. More than 5,500 Australian soldiers were killed during 19–20 July 1916 at Fromelles.

In March 1917, his mother wrote to the Army, stating that “Our poor lad may be suffering from an injury to his head or shell shock, and may have forgotten who he is. We all have the feeling that he is not dead.”

Sadly, the Red Cross wrote to Henry’s family that same month, advising them that Henry’s name had appeared on a list, given to them by the Germans, of men that they had buried.

Henry’s body lay in a massed grave until recently when the grave was located at Pheasant Wood in the Fromelles area. Henry is now interred in the new CWGC Cemetery at Pheasant Wood.

In August 1922, Elizabeth Nelson, his mum, was sent Henry’s Memorial Plaque (also known as a 'dead man's penny') and Memorial Scroll.

Now, some 91 years later, the plaque was found by Lynne Crawford in Bingara, in a box bought from a garage sale some years earlier. Lynne’s neighbour and researcher Helen Cornish contacted Angela Phippen at Ryde Library in the hope of returning the plaque to Henry’s family.

Angela was able to put Lynne in touch with the Ryde District Historical Society, who, for the past two years, has been working on the Ryde Goes to War Project – a project aimed at identifying all people from Ryde who served in WW1. Through various contacts, and research undertaken, RDHS was able to contact Judy Hanlen, a great niece of Henry Nelson, and let her know that the plaque had been found.

Now, on Saturday 16 March 2013 at 2.00pm the plaque will be reunited with Henry’s family. You are invited to join us in a short function to be held in the Wallumetta Room, Ryde Library, 1 Pope Street, Ryde NSW 2112 (cnr Pope and Devlin Streets, within Top Ryde City Shopping Centre).

Coincidently the Ryde Historical Society, as part of its Ryde Goes to War Project has been looking to find the descendants of nine men from our district identified as possibly buried in the Pheasant Wood Cemetery, with the idea to assist in their DNA identification. Henry Nelson had already been identified as one of the men being researched. Efforts by his great niece Judy Hanlen to match DNA to identify him, have failed. The Society is pleased to be able to present the Memorial Plaque to Judy as a tangible link to her great uncle.

If you would like any additional information or details, or you plan on attending, please contact

RDHS on (02) 9807 7137 or email Ryde District Historical Society at

rydegoestowar@gmail.com

To assist with catering, please RSVP by 11 March 2013

Remembrance Day 2012

 

On this 2012 Remembrance Day

 the members of the Ryde Goes to War Project team 

remember all our Australian service men and women,

especially those with a connection to

the Ryde Municipality.

WWI Nurses with a connection to Ryde District

In our research to-date we have found eight Nurses, Sisters or Matrons on our lists for the Ryde Municipality.

Much has been written about Matron (Mary Anne) Bessie Pocock, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pocock-mary-anne-bessie-8069 
who was born in Queensland and grew up in the Grafton area of New South Wales. Pocock did her general nursing training at Sydney Hospital from November 1890 and continued on the staff as a sister until  she joined the New South Wales Army Nursing Service Reserve in 1899 and enlisted for service in the South African War. She returned to Sydney Hospital in June 1903 until she was appointed matron of hospitals for the insane at Newcastle in 1907-11 and at Gladesville in 1911-14.
In September 1914 Sister Pocock enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and took up duty as senior sister of the 2nd Australian General Hospital, Cairo, Egypt, she then served as matron at the temporary hospital for the wounded at Ismailia, on the Hospital Ship Assaye and in France & Belgium, the Australian convalescent hospital, Cobham Hall, Kent, England and the 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford, England before returning to Sydney on 30 October 1919. After the war she resumed her position as matron at Gladesville Hospital.
Bessie Pocock was awarded the Royal Red Cross, 2nd class.

While there are numerous photos of, and lots of published material dealing with Matron Pocock's WWI service, very little is known of the other seven women who served and to-date we haven't found any photos of them.

If you have any information that would add to our research project we would love to hear from you.

FOLLINGTON	Emily
HALL	Marion
HILL	Nellie Frances
HYDE	Charlotte Louisa
MURRELL	Elizabeth Ellen
MURRELL	Emmeline Anne
POCOCK	Mary Anne Bessie
REID	Evelyn Maud

Project Up-date October 2012:

We currently have 20 helpers working on different letters of the alphabet to identifying the combined list of names we have collected from various Honour rolls, war memorials, embarkations rolls, local newspapers, etc.  that have been found to have a connection to the Ryde district before or during World War I.

The current total number of names is 1842 Service people ; and so far we have been able to identify with full names and service numbers 1044  ; with 798  still to be identified.

 

The number who didn't come home is currently 341 and we have photos of 107 of their headstones or memorials.

 

We have also made contact with the families of 38 service people from our list and have found photos for 125 of them.

The number of Nurses, Sisters, or Matrons found on our list is currently at 8.  

Ryde's Conference Trading Table.

Between September 14 -16, six members of the Ryde District Historical Society & Family History Group attended the 2012 NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies Annual State Conference at Gymea, NSW.

There, we were able to meet other Societies and share our Ryde goes to War Project and to find out what other groups are doing across the State.





In the past month we had also found that by using the ADFA search site http://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/search
we could tick the next of kin's address option and the results gave us whole new list of names, many we had already found by other means but at this stage there appears to be a lot more soldiers and a few nurses who have a connection to the Ryde district during WWI.



Marg & Kim cross checking lists!

Marg & Kim took some time out during Friday's Conference Expo (not just to put their feet up and enjoy the Tradies Members Lounge!) but to cross-check our soldiers lists -- instead of eliminating duplicate names - we have found a whole lot more to add!

We have also added a 'My Blog List' to the left hand column of this blog and are adding other WWI Blog projects we find.