A Family At War

As the mother of two young men, fighting for their God, King and country during World War One, Mary Ann was proud and stoic.  The mother of ten children, she had already experienced three of her sons dying as children during a diphtheria epidemic in 1891, the youngest only eleven months old.   Mary Ann also nursed daughter Alice through the disease before becoming ill herself.  Mary Ann’s strength and stoicism would no doubt help her when, as a single mother, she would see the country at war and one of her sons die, thousands of miles away from her, but always in her heart. Mary Ann was born in Alberton in 1854, only thirteen years after the town had been named.  Her parents, John and Jane, had come to the new colony from Ireland.   Marrying Arthur in 1875, Mary Ann would have her first child Alice in 1876 and her last child Muriel, 19 years later.  Only three years after the birth of Muriel, her husband would die following complications from the me...

The ninth of Arthur and Mary Appleyard's ten children, Francis was the first of the Appleyard boys to sign up to the Great War, signing his enlistment papers of August 18, 1914, two weeks after Australia entered the war. Known to his family as Frank, he was only 5 when his father, Arthur Horatio, son of convict Peter died.  Arthur had held numerous positions in the Alberton Shire from 1870 to 1898 and was the Shire Engineer when he caught the measles, leading to his early death at only 47. Three of his brothers had died as children during a diphtheria epidemic in 1891 and the family had moved from Gelliondale to Alberton to escape the sadness of the home.  Following the death of Arthur, Frank’s mother Mary, would lease out the rooms of her Alberton home to boarders to make money and ensure her children could continue their schooling. In 1903 Frank was registered as living in Won Wron and working as a labourer.  With his family well regarded in the area, and educatio...

The seventh of ten children, Edgar John Appleyard grew up in Alberton, a small town in South Gippsland.   His Grandfather Peter had come to Australia as a convict and settled in Alberton 4 years after it was surveyed.   A pioneering family in the district, Edgar’s father, Arthur Horatio was the Shire Engineer with his uncles all playing a role in the opening up of the region to European settlers. At the time World War One began, Edgar was a labourer, 23 years old, single and presumably good on horseback. Exactly what the Government was looking for as they sought Australian men to fight for England.   Just passing the strict medical test, Edgar signed onto the 8 th Light horse Regiment in October 1914, three months after the war began. Considered the ‘national arm of Australia’s defence’, the Lighthorse Regiments were made up mainly of young men from regional areas with many bringing their own horses.   As part of their enlistment for the regiments, the re...