504 Driver William Patrick Harris – Jarrahmond Killed in Action 25 April 1915

….. wrote in his notebook that he had landed

When both Thomas and Roseanna Harris died leaving a young family of four children, Queenie, Josephine, William and Ellen were shifted around between various members of their extended family until they were old enough to fend for themselves. This is how young William ended up with his cousins, the Rodericks, at Jarrahmond and attending Jarrahmond school. Once leaving school he became a stove fitter and in 1908 joined the 5 th  Australian Imperial Regiment (which had grown out of the Victorian Imperial Bushmen who served in the Boer War) in January 1908 and twelve months later became a Driver with the Garrison Ambulance. He was 24yrs and 9 months when enlisted with the 5 th  Battalion on 17 August 1914 and was on the first voyage of the Orvieto from Port Melbourne to Egypt. He was among the hundreds who landed at Gallipoli and then disappeared. His pocketbook was found in the field after his death and returned to his only sister Queenie but he did not leave much news in it only that he had landed and that was wrote with his dear hands. In 1916 Queenie and her husband had a daughter whom they named Orvieto in memory of William and the ship that had carried him away from Australia. His identity disc and rosary beads were the only items returned to Queenie. In 1921 when asked where he had been killed she responded I would give all my life to know.

This postcard represents the last contact that William Harris made with his family. William, on the left, with an unidentified comrade taken when in Egypt. The reverse of the postcard reads “You can see that I am pretty thin but I will soon pick up now we are out of the trenches.” AWM H06276, donated by Patricia Di Stefano