George Rottenbury had been born in Ryde in 1892. He lived with parents William & Mary in Potts St, Ryde. George was single when he enlisted at Ryde Town Hall in May 1916. He left for the Front with 16th Reinforcements of the 19th Battalion.
In the following April, he was injured with a severe gunshot wound to his chest. After treatment at 13th General Hospital, Boulogne, he was transferred to Fort Pitt Hospital, Chatham. five months later he was well enough to travel home. George later married and had a son and settled in Gladesville after the war, where he was a member of the Gladesville RSL Sub-Branch and the Permanently Disabled Soldiers Association.
Week 10 : 3 December 2014 - The Northern District Times, page 15
[ current working on getting this link to work ]
[if you click on the title -- it should take you to the on-line edition of the newspaper]
Showing posts with label Ryde. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryde. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Project update - July 2014
Firstly my
apologies for the lack of blogging in recent months; hopefully I am back on
track to post regular updates!
Just because
the blog was quiet that doesn’t mean our project has stopped – it is quite the
opposite.
There has
been much happening in the last year of the Ryde goes to War Project and we are
getting busier as we near the Centenary of World War One.
Some of the
things we have been working on:
·
Continuing
to identify and research all service men & women with a connection to the
Ryde district prior to and during the war years.
·
We
have searched the available local papers for names, and references to the
service men & women, as well as any events in the local home front during
the war years; and we have created an index to these references.
·
The
Field of Mars Cemetery, Ryde, was walked and all headstones with a reference or
memorial to World War One have been sought out, listed and photographed.
.jpg) |
| Members of the Ryde District Historical Society preparing to search the Field of Mars Cemetery for any World War I memorials or headstones, August 2013. |
·
Planning
for the Ryde District Historical Society’s Centenary of WWI events, including
the publication of our research, has begun.
·
We
have representation on City of Ryde’s Centenary of WWI Committee, and are
working with Council on access to our database, and supporting their events.
·
We
are assisting Ryde Library with their “Ryde Remembers 2014-2018” events across
their branches.
·
Our
volunteers or family connections have begun to write the stories of selected
names in our database for our planed RGTW publication.
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
Project Update — September 2013
My apologies for the lack of blog updates in recent months,
but a bereavement and a birth in my family, has kept me distracted from
updating the blog.
Yes – the Ryde goes to War Project is still progressing –
our latest update:
In our database we currently have 2,075 names of Service
people with a connection to the Ryde district. These have been collected from various Honour rolls, War memorials,
embarkations rolls, local newspapers, etc. Most just list a family name with
an initial or two. When these rolls, memorials and reports were created a
hundred years ago, the Ryde community would have known exactly who they were honouring,
but today many are unknown or forgotten. We want to identify these men and the
few women and at the least find their full names and service numbers and their
connection to the district. Many on our list were born in the area, educated or
worked in the area; others are proving harder to find the connection for.
So far we have been able to identify,
with full names and service numbers, 1,349.
726 are still to be identified.
304 of them never returned home, and we currently
have photos of 105 of their headstones or memorials.
We have also made contact with the families of 78 service people from our list
and have found photos of 114 of them.
The number of Nurses, Sisters, or Matrons
found on our list is currently at 11or 12 (depending if Nurse N. Hall, turns
out to be the same person as Nurse Marion Hall...
What our team has been up
to……
- In August we got together
to discuss our project with many of our team of researchers. We have more
than 20 working on the project including one joining us when possible from
Victoria! Each has been focusing on a specific letter and working on their
group of surnames; some have completed their groups and we are starting to
collate the data, while others are still hunting!
- We also have representatives
on the Ryde Anzac Centenary Committee Ryde Council’s WWI Centenary
taskforce and are working with them to ensure the data we collect will be accessible
into the future.
- We had planned a
transcription and photographing day at one of our local cemeteries, Field
of Mars, in June, but it was rained out.
The sun shone on our July date and we were able to tackle various
sections to hunt out any headstones that included war service information
or memorials. A few of our team are following up on this and more details
will follow.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Our Anzac family – the Nelson Brothers of Ryde, NSW and Wellington, NZ
Their story as researched by the RGTW team
In the
previous blog post we have heard the wonderful story of the return of Henry
Oscar Nelson’s Dead Man’s penny to members of his family. In preparation for that event we did some
research on who the Nelson family were, and where they came from and discovered
them to be an ANZAC family!
Two of the
six Nelsons listed on our Ryde goes to war database are brothers, Frederick Andrew Nelson (Service No. 727)
& Henry Oscar Nelson (Service No. 728 ), both were born in Wellington,
New Zealand.
Martin
Nelson of Sweden, married Elizabeth McCracken of Ireland, in New Zealand in
1887. They had seven children, all born
in New Zealand: Charles Leonard, born in 1888 ; Alfred William, born 1889 and
died in 1890 in New Zealand; Frederick Andrew, born 1891 ; Emily Jane, born in
1894; Henry Oscar, born in 1896 ; Agnes Maria, born in 1899 ; Maurits, stillborn
in 1904.
 |
| Frederick Andrew Nelson Service No. 727 30th Battalion |
The 1911 New
Zealand Electoral Rolls record a Martin Nelson as living in Mount Pleasant,
Mitchelltown and he was a Labourer. The
eldest son, Charles Leonard is also listed as living in Mount Pleasant.
 |
| Henry Oscar Nelson Service No. 728 30th Battalion KIA Fromelles 20 July 1916 |
By 1915, the Sydney Sands Directory lists, Martin Nelson as residing in Parkes St, Ryde, on the south side between the Masonic Hall and Joseph Parry. This is the address given by Frederick and Henry, when they enlist in the Australian Imperial Force, in July 1915. With consecutive service numbers, the brothers both join C Company of the 30th Battalion, and depart Australia in November 1915. Tragically (as we have already heard in previous blogs), Henry is to be killed in action at Fromelles on 20 July 1916.
Only nine
months after that the family is to receive another cruel blow when Martin fell
from a tram near Pyrmont Bridge and died in Sydney Hospital. He is buried in the Presbyterian section of
Field of Mars Cemetery, Ryde. His death
certificate shows that he died on 10 April 1917, he was 60 years old, and died
from accidental injuries. His father was
Svan Nelson, Pilot, and his mother was Anne Ivanson. His place of birth is shown as Warberg in
Sweden and he had been 3 years in NSW.
The informant was his eldest son, Charles, of Parkes St, Ryde.
Elizabeth
Nelson died on 8th July 1934 at her residence in 22 Belmore St, Ryde. Her death
certificate shows she was 70 years old and her parents were John Charles
McCracken, school teacher, and Margaret Henderson. Her place of birth is shown as Dublin, that
she lived in Wellington, NZ for 31 years and 20 years in NSW. The informant was
her son, Frederick, of 61 Bowden St, Ryde.
She is buried beside her husband, Martin, at Field of Mars Cemetery.
Frederick
Andrew Nelson is listed on the Ryde Town Hall Honour Rolls and St Anne's
Anglican Church, while Henry Oscar Nelson is listed among the names of the dead
in the Ryde Civic Centre Memorial Book and also on the St Anne's Anglican Church.
 |
| World War I Honour Roll of St. Anne's Anglican Church, Ryde |
Sunday, 24 March 2013
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
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.
Saturday, 16 February 2013
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 |
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
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