In Memory of an Anzac Soldier
Private John “Jack” Ivison 1888 – 1915
By Julia Robinson-White, 26 April 2021
Published on: www.dustandglare.home.blog/in-memory-of-an-anzac-soldier/
Anzac Day – 25 April 2021
Amongst a box of family photographs given to me for safekeeping by my Dad’s cousin, I came across a postcard of a Digger from WWI. The photo sparked my interest. It showed a young man in the 1st Australian Imperial Force (AIF)
uniform, seated on a stool in front of a backdrop of pyramids and palm trees. The hand-written message “Love from John” did not give me any answers as to who this man was. The description on the back, in my great-grandfather’s barely decipherable scrawl, read:
John ___ 26 Sup. Sons of Gwalia 16th Battn. Killed.
There were no John’s in my family from Gwalia. Who was John? Why was this photograph amongst our family documents
Having not been able to identify this person in my family research, I donated the postcard to the Gwalia Museum when I visited late last year. My great-grandfather had noted John’s connection to the Sons of Gwalia Mine so I decided the record would best belong to the history collection of Gwalia. It was some months later, searching through old Goldfields newspapers in the wonderful online world of ‘Trove’, that I discovered some clues to my questions and so, I began to piece together small bits of information about the unknown soldier in this photograph.
This is the story of Private John “Jack” Ivison, who was killed in action in the landing at Gallipoli on 27 April 1915, aged just 26 years old… Born on 15 April 1888, John Ivison, known as “Jack” to his friends, was the eldest child of William and
Margaret Ivison of 151 Rimrose Road, Bootle (Liverpool) in England.[1] Jack’s father, William, was a house painter and decorator. By 1891, the family had moved to Great Crosby, [2] where William worked in his trade and Jack attended St Luke’s Boys School.[3] There were seven other children in the Ivison family. In 1911, Jack was 22 years old, single and working as a plumber. He was living with his parents at 27 Musker Street, Great Crosby.[4] Jack assisted in the opening of the Independent Methodist Church Crosby where he held the post of Sunday school secretary.[5]
At age 24, Jack made the adventurous decision to travel to Australia where he found work on the gold mines in Western Australia. By 1914, he was living in the Eastern Goldfields and working as a labourer on the Sons of Gwalia Gold Mine.[6]
It was in the remote, dusty town of Gwalia, that Jack reconnected with a friend from home. William Robinson, known as “Bill”, grew up just 200m down the road from Jack, in Moorgate Street, Great Crosby. Bill’s older sister, Lydia, was about the same age as Jack and Bill’s family had also attended the local Methodist Church. Bill had arrived in Australia in 1912 and was also working on the Sons of Gwalia mine as a labourer. Far away from family and friends and the familiar streets of Crosby, no doubt the two Liverpudlians enjoyed catching up about news from their hometown whilst they shovelled ore and hauled timber in the underground mine together. They became great mates.
Photo of John (Jack) with William (Bill) Robinson
This was until news of the war unfolding in Europe, over 9,000 miles away, reached the men in the mines of the Western Australian outback.
Inside Sons of Gwalia Gold Mine, c.1915 (State Library WA Collection)
3 On August 4 1914 Great Britain declared war on Germany. Australia quickly followed the Mother Land’s call to arms. A rush of volunteers flocked to the capital cities to enlist. Men were dispatched from Perth and Adelaide to Melbourne where the new 4th Brigade was forming. From the city and suburbs clerks laid down their pens, shopkeepers and shop assistants walked out of their shops, solicitors paused with their briefs, workmen downed their picks and shovels and from the countryside bushmen, farmers, graziers, shearers, woodchoppers set out on by horse drawn buggy, by train, by horse and on foot starting their journey to join a new type of army – an all volunteer army – the Australian Imperial Force.
They were assembled equipped and trained… and by late October the Great Convoy began assembling in ports around the country departing over the period 15-25 October 1914 bound initially for Albany in Western Australia to concentrate and pick up their escorts before crossing the Indian Ocean for the Middle East.[7] Jack was quick to join the Army. His brothers, Edward and William, back in England also enlisted with the King’s Regiment (Liverpool) – one of the infantry regiments of the British Army – and were deployed to the Western Front. Recruiting offices opened in Australia only 6 days after the war began and, within months, thousands of men had joined the AIF. Despite being English, John was welcomed into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). Men who volunteered to serve in the AIF were all considered equal, relying on each other in difficult times and sharing the experiences of war together. After all, they were
all supporting the British Empire’s cause.[8]
Jack’s medical examination was conducted in Leonora in September 1914 and he met the strict enlistment standards. Being a member of the Leonora Rifle Club would have also been to his advantage. By October, he was officially a soldier of the AIF training near Guildford, Perth. He was 26 years old. In his enlistment papers, Jack is recorded as 5 feet, 5 ¼ inches tall, 126lbs with a dark complexion and dark hair.[9] Jack was assigned to the 16th Battalion, A Company. His unit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on the HMAT A40 Ceramic on 22 December 1914.
Troop transport HMAT Ceramic (A40) laden with
troops after leaving Port Melbourne wharf. (AWM Collection)
The 16th Battalion AIF was raised from 16 September 1914, six weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. Three-quarters of the battalion were recruited in Western Australia, and the rest in South Australia. With the 13th, 14th and 15th Battalions it formed the 4th Brigade commanded by Colonel John Monash. The South Australian and Western Australian recruits were united when the battalion trained together in Victoria. They embarked for overseas on Boxing Day. After a brief stop in Albany, Western Australia, the battalion proceeded to Egypt arriving in early February 1915… Australia already had an nAIF division there, the 1st. When the 4th Brigade arrived in Egypt it became part of the New Zealand
and Australian Division.[10]
The 4th Brigade of the Anzacs trained at Heliopolis, near Cairo, but were soon en-route once again headed for the Greek island of Lemnos, and then on to the Dardanelles Straits in Western Turkey. Before he left Egypt, Jack sent a photo of himself in uniform to his old friend, Bill, who was still working on the mines back in Gwalia, Western Australia. For the rest of his life, Bill kept the photo in his possession.
Landing at Anzac Beach, Gallipoli on the
morning of 25 April 1915 (AWM Collection)
The Gallipoli campaign was fought by Allied forces attempting to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front, to open up the supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and to compel the Ottoman Empire to withdraw from the war.
Originally planned for 23 April, the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula was delayed two days because of bad weather. British and French troops landed at Cape Helles to the south, while the Anzacs landed midway up the peninsula, a site called Z Beach (later known as Brighton Beach). They landed late in the afternoon of 25 April 1915. The 1st Australian Division spearheaded the attack, with the first wave of troops landing before dawn. They came ashore about 2 km north of the intended landing site, most in a narrow bay (later known as Anzac Cove) just south of the Ari Burnu headland. This was one of the worst places on that stretch of coast to make a landing – the surrounding landscape was steep and broken by deep gullies. As the troops tried to get off the beach, units got hopelessly lost amidst the rugged terrain. Only a few small, uncoordinated parties managed to reach the initial objective, Gun Ridge. Delays in landing the remainder of the 1st Australian Division compounded the problems ashore. The last of these troops reached shore four hours behind schedule. In the meantime, the first elements of Godley’s New Zealand and Australian Division had begun landing soon after 10a.m., adding to the confusion. New Zealand infantry, led by the Auckland and Canterbury battalions, started landing
around 11a.m. and quickly joined the desperate and confused fighting on the hills and ridgelines above Anzac Cove.[11]
One of Jack’s comrades from the 16th Battalion, Ellis Silas, described this moment in his war diary: It was a relief to get ashore. We were packed so tightly in the boats and, moreover, so heavily laden with our kit, that had a shot hit the boat we would have had no chance of saving ourselves. It was awful, the feeling of utter helplessness. Meanwhile, the Turks were pelting us hot and fast. In jumping ashore, I fell over; my kit was so heavy that I couldn’t get up without help… It was a magnificent spectacle to see those thousands of men rushing through this hail of death, as though it were some
big game. [12]
But as we know, this was no game. By that evening, 2,000 of the 16,000 young Australian and New Zealander men who landed in boats that day had been killed or wounded. For most of them, this was their first experience of combat. After such a disastrous offensive, the Army Commanders considered an immediate evacuation, but it was decided it was not feasible and Sir Ian Hamilton issued the order to hold on: You have got through the difficult business, now you dig, dig, dig, until you are safe. And dig they did. After making it ashore, the 16th battalion was sent up to Pope’s Hill, where they
spent the whole night “digging in” under intense rifle fire. They then held the hill against strong Turkish resistance for several days.
The final diary entry of Pte Alfred Love, 14th Battalion, on 27 April sums up the terrifying experience the Anzac troops were going through: Arrived at firing line at 10 o’clock this morning. Having a very bad time of it so far. Machine guns
played hell on our men for a start, they are getting hit and killed all around me but I escaped so far…[13] It was during these hellish first 48 hours of the Allied landing that Jack Ivison was killed. He died on 27 April 1915. He has no known grave. He died somewhere on the rocky slopes of the Gallipoli Peninsula above the place that became known as Anzac Cove.
Pope’s Hill Cemetery, Gallipoli AWM Collection
Jack’s death was not known to his friends and family until June, when the West Australian Newspaper published the names of the thirty-first casualty list, which read: The thirty-first casualty list in connection with the Australian troops engaged in the Dardanelles operations was made available yesterday by the Censor, and is published hereunder, together with particulars of next of kin of the Western Australians concerned. Of the 306 names included in the list no less than 116 are those of killed and in this respect Western Australia has suffered, very heavily, losing 45 men.[14] Bill Robinson mourned the loss of his good friend. He made enquiries about Jack’s death on behalf of his family back in England, writing to the Minister of Defence at Parliament House to obtain the particulars.[15] Determined to remember and pay tribute to his soldier friend, Bill printed a notice in the local newspapers on the anniversary of Jack’s death each year until the end of the war. [16]
1 Kalgoorlie Miner (WA: 1895 – 1954), Monday 28 April 1919, page 4
2 Kalgoorlie Miner (WA), Tuesday 7 May 1918, page 4
3 Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), Tuesday 29 April 1919, p15
Jack is also remembered on the panels of the Lone Pine Memorial that stands on the site of some of the fiercest fighting at Gallipoli, overlooking the front line of April-May 1915. The Memorial commemorates 3,268 Australians and 456 New Zealanders who have no known grave and also those who succumbed to wounds or disease and who were buried at sea during evacuation to Alexandria, Malta and the UK; 960 Australians (nearly 1 in 8 of those lost) and 252 New Zealand
soldiers were thus accounted for.[17]
Lone Pine Memorial at Gallipoli, Turkey, 2009
A description of the war cemeteries in the region was written shortly after the war ended: Anzac is, and will probably always remain, by far the most spectacular battlefield- upon which troops of the British Empire fought. Its cliffs and gorges, its trenches, and even some of the dug-outs, stand now, and will stand for years, almost exactly as they did on the day of the evacuation – only roofs, timbers, and movable material have gone. The first burial party which visited it, soon after the Armistice, found the remains of Australians still lying at the farthest points which they had reached on the first day of the landing. Some had been buried by the Turks. Others had lain in No Man’s Land all these years. In every place over that rugged area where the Australians had fallen, there were their bodies or their graves. In every gully, and near most of the old posts, were the old cemeteries. Some of these had been interfered with by Turkish marauders or pillagers, but there was no evidence of deliberate desecration by the Turks.[18]
In 2009, when I visited Gallipoli, I was also struck by this remarkable setting for a theatre of war and the incredible respect shown by the Turkish people even to this day, for the Allied Soldiers and their gravesites – of those who had ultimately invaded their homeland so many years before.
Anzak Koyu Beach, Turkey, 2009
Jack was posthumously awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal. There was also an unfortunate mix up with his personal belongings which were sent to the family of another J. Ivison in the 16th Battalion. His family back in Liverpool would have gained little comfort on receiving the pamphlet “Where the Australians Rest”, which was sent to the next-of-kin of all servicemen who died on active service for the AIF during World War I. To those “who have lost some dear relative or friend of whom there has been no trace nor word since the day when he fell in battle, may learn here something of the place in which he rests. For the authorities have been making every effort that not one soldier whose remains can be found on these old battlefields shall go without a soldier’s honourable burial. In all too many cases, alas, those who fall upon the field of battle, fall in some part of the field where no friend can reach them alive. The burial parties, which work wherever it is possible, often in danger, cannot reach them under the machine guns of the enemy. Months afterwards, sometimes years, the battle rolls beyond that place, and these poor forms are dealt with as tenderly as the time and place allow. The officials of the Graves Registration Unit examine carefully each part of the old No Man’s Land, and erect a cross, or other symbol, wherever these brave men are found. Often the spot has been already marked by some soldier fixing beside the grave the rifle which lies near it, or laying reverently upon the little mound some shrapnel-torn helmet that may once have belonged to him who lies there. In a few instances, the names of these men are found on their identity discs, or on the sodden papers which may sometimes still lie beside them, But too often there is left no trace or clue to the soldier’s name. Private or officer, he lies there, “An Unknown Soldier.”[19]
The Isivon family did however experience the joy and relief of Jack’s younger brothers, Edward and William, both returning home from the war. 8 After 12 months of service, and the eventual evacuation of troops from Gallipoli, only eight officers and 109 men remained of Jack’s original 16th Battalion (of these only 20 had not been wounded).[20]
The whole Gallipoli operation cost 26,111 Australian casualties, including 8,141 deaths.
Informal group portrait of the surviving members of the 16th Battalion at Lemnos Island.
(AWM Collection)
‘Gallant Heroes of the Dardanelles’ published in The Sun Newspaper (Kalgoorlie), Sunday 4 July 1915, page 16
(John Ivison – top row, second from left)
The battles fought by the AIF at Gallipoli have become a significant part of Australian folklore, “widely regarded as the foundation legend of Australian military history, and a potent symbol of federated Australia… the characteristics that the Anzacs displayed throughout the campaign – bravery, ingenuity, endurance and mateship – have come to be celebrated as defining characteristics of the Australian personality.”[21] The Anzacs are our national heroes today, and among their ranks was Pte John “Jack” Ivison. His name is recorded in history. Now we may add a photograph to his name.
Lest We Forget.
John “Jack” Ivison’s name inscribed on Panel 53 at Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli
Name John Ivison
Service number 667
Rank Private
Unit 16th Australian Infantry Battalion
Service Australian Imperial Force
Conflict/Operation First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict Eligibility Date First World War, 1914-1921
Date of Death 27 April 1915
Place of Death Gallipoli, Dardanelles, Turkey
Cause of Death Killed in action
Age at Death 27
Place of Association Gwalia, Western Australia, Australia
Cemetery or Memorial Details
Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli Peninsula, Canakkale Province, Turkey
(Panel 53)
Sun Newspaper (Kalgoorlie), Sunday 4 July 1915, page 16 (John Ivison – top row, second from left)
John “Jack” Ivison’s name inscribed on Panel 53 at Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli
Name John Ivison
Service number 667
Rank Private
Unit 16th Australian Infantry Battalion
Service Australian Imperial Force
Conflict/Operation First World War, 1914-1918
Conflict Eligibility Date First World War, 1914-1921
Date of Death 27 April 1915
Place of Death Gallipoli, Dardanelles, Turkey
Cause of Death Killed in action
Age at Death 27
Place of Association Gwalia, Western Australia, Australia
Cemetery or Memorial Details
Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli Peninsula, Canakkale Province, Turkey
(Panel 53)
Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal
https://media.iwm.org.uk/loris/467/623/super_000000.jpg/full/865,/0/default.jpg
References:
[1] Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool, England, Liverpool Church of England Parish Registers,
Reference Number: 283 BOO/2/2
[2] The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey, England, Census Returns of England and Wales,
1891; Class: RG12; Piece: 2983; Folio: 101; Page: 14; GSU roll: 6098093
[3] John IVISON’s Army record published by the AIF Project, Australian Defence Force Academy,
UNSW, Canberra on www.aif.adfa.edu.au
[4] The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales,
1911
[5] Great Crosby & Blundellsands’ War Memorial on www.seftonwarmemorials.org
[6] Australia Electoral Rolls 1915, Gwalia, Western Australia
[7] ’16th Infantry Battalion (WA/SA), 4th Brigade, 4th Division, AIF’ published on www.vwma.org.au
[8] Cultural diversity in Australia’s forces during World War I published on
www.anzacportal.dva.gov.au
[9] IVISON, John (Service Number 667), listed National Archives of Australia, Canberra, ACT,
Australia; B2455, First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920
[10] ’16th Australian Infantry Battalion’ published on www.awm.gov.au/collection
[11] ‘The Gallipoli campaign’ published on www.nzhistory.govt.nz
[12] Ellis Silas Diary Extracts published on https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-andmissions/
ww1/where-australians-served/gallipoli/landing-anzac-cove/ellis-silas-diary-extracts
[13] The Anzacs by Patsy Adam-Smith, Thomas Nelson, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 1978, p.86
[14] West Australian Newspaper (Perth), Saturday 5 June 1915, p11
[15] Letter from William Robinson recorded with IVISON John (Service Number 667) in National
Archives of Australia, Discovering Anzacs; Series B2455; 7365394
[16] Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), Tuesday 15 May 1917, p16, Kalgoorlie Miner (WA), Tuesday 7 May
1918, \Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), Tuesday 29 April 1919, p15.
[17] ‘Lone Pine Memorial to the Missing’ published on Virtual War Memorial www.vwma.org.au
[18] Where the Australians rest: a description of many of the cemeteries overseas in which
Australians, including those whose names can never now be known, are buried, prepared under
instructions from the Minister of State for Defence (Senator G.F. Pearce), edited by Charles Bean,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 1920
[19] Where the Australians rest: a description of many of the cemeteries overseas in which
Australians, including those whose names can never now be known, are buried, prepared under
instructions from the Minister of State for Defence (Senator G.F. Pearce), edited by Charles Bean,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 1920
[20] ’16th Battalion’ published on www.awm.gov.au
[21] ‘Gallipoli Landing’ published on www.nma.gov.au
12
Other References:
Australian War Memorial Collection
National Archives of Australia, Discovering Anzacs
AIF Project – Australian Defence Force Academy UNSW Canberra
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