496 Private Richard George Tudgey – Swan Reach Died of wounds 7 June 1915

….. penetrating gunshot wounds to the head

Richard Tudgey jnr was the only son of Richard and Sarah Tudgey of Waterholes who had come to the district in the early 1890s. Richard was a sawmiller but died in a tragic mining accident at Waterholes in 1899 when he was overcome by toxic fumes at the bottom of a mine. This left Sarah to raise the three children, George, as he was known, Louisa and Rose. Sadly both his mother Sarah and Rose died of pneumonia in 1903 leaving George, 15 years and Louisa, 11 years, under the care of his uncle John Henderson of Swan Reach. He enlisted on 28 September 1914 when he was 25 years old and had been in the 15 th  Light Horse branch at Bairnsdale for two years when he joined the 9 th   Light Horse. He arrived at Gallipoli on 16 May 1915 only to receive penetrating gunshot wounds to the head on 29 May and was transferred by hospital ship Gascon to the Greek Hospital in Alexandria where he died a week later at 6pm on 7 June 1915. He was buried at the Chatby Cemetery and is remembered at Metung, Sarsfield and Bairnsdale Shire.