As the First World War waded into the bloody pit that was 1917, the parishioners of St Peter’s Church of England in Sturt Street, having suffered already enough the losses of their youth before the war’s end, decided to construct a memorial chapel dedicated to those who had served and died in the conflict.
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Built with bluestone from the old Church of England in Miners Rest which had been bought and demolished by the Ballarat parish, the chapel features memorial stained glass windows donated by two prominent Ballarat families, the Tunbridges and Curwen-Walkers, each of whom lost a son in the war.
The Soldiers' Chapel sits to the left of St Peter’s main nave and church altar. Its memorial windows are the work of another Great War veteran, artist Napier Waller, who lost an arm in 1916 fighting in France and re-taught himself stained glass and mosaic work following the war.
Waller’s work is well-known throughout Australia, and his stained glass is represented in many churches and the Australian War Memorial. He was also a muralist and mosaicist of great renown.
The windows were installed over a period of years from the 1930s onward and feature elongated designs, a striking characteristic of Waller’s work. This is especially notable in the window of the Transfiguration of Christ. The work is transformed by light coming through the window, making it embody the radiance of its constituent colours to embody the miracle, Christ in red robes on a green mountain, sunlit in yellow.
The chapel housed the Roll of Honour board for the fallen of the First World War, which had previously been located in the church itself, near the front door. No Second World War board had been commissioned, so the church will rectify that as part of the recognition of the chapel’s centenary.
Over 300 St Peter’s parishioners served in World War Two. Twelve members of St Peter's were killed in action, and their names are recorded on the board:
- Robert Henry Shattock
- Charles Edward Suffren
- William Ross Block
- Charles Ian MacGregor Herbert
- Leslie William Hocking
- John Howard Kearns
- John Frederick Mansfield
- Leslie Norman McNeight
- Edward Burford Morris-Hadwell
- Ronald Charles Orpen
- Albert Edward Phillips
- Bryan Henry Wastell.
Amongst them are Flight Officer Charles Suffren, a navigator in a Lancaster bomber who was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and Sgt Robert “Bob” Shattock who was awarded a Military Medal for conspicuous leadership and bravery at the Battle of Bardia in the Western Desert in 1941.
Charles Suffren, after whom an annual cross country running race in Ballarat is named, met his end when his bomber which was laying mines in the Baltic Sea was shot down over Denmark in 1944. Although the plane was diving steeply and both wings were on fire, he managed to bail out before it exploded.
He was later found in a plantation nearby, unconscious.
On his water bag he had written: "03:40 hours attacked by nightfighter, thrown out of aircraft. Back broken. Greet my family, Ted - 05:10 hours, pain unbearable”.
He was brought to a Danish hospital but was then transferred to Germany. He eventually died at a Luftwaffe hospital near Frankfurt on February 16, 1945 and is buried at the Durnbach Cemetery, south of Munich. The citation for his DFC notes his “skill and fortitude in operation against the enemy”.
Bob Shattock, an old boy of Ballarat Grammar, led his small section of infantrymen with great élan at the Battle of Bardia, capturing a number of Italian machine gun nests, vehicles and prisoners. Below is an excerpt from Peter Kenny’s We who Proudly Serve.
Bob Shattock was killed fighting the Japanese at Mubo Falls, Salamaua, New Guinea in 1943. A fine tenor, his last song for his mates the night before was prophetically a number called Goodbye.
Another of the those who will be remembered, Edward Burford Morris-Hadwell, was reported missing in action on October 12, 1943, after his No.30 Sqn RAAF Beaufighter A19-97 was shot down south-east of Rabaul on the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea. His remains were not discovered for 57 years, and he and his pilot were finally laid to rest with full military honours in a nearby cemetery in 2000.
While the service history of these men is well known, other soldiers who are remembered on the board are only names, like Albert Philips. We know only that he was born in Creswick and died in Greece in 1941, during the disastrous Allied retreat before the advancing Germans. Nothing more is known of his story, or how he met his death. His heroism and his last hours, like those of many on the honour board, are unknown.
The new memorial board was made locally by David Young, who recently celebrated 40 years of working with Central Joinery of Canadian, Ballarat, a company that has been in business itself for around 60 years.
The honour board is made to the same design and measurements as the original World War One board, and Central Joinery’s Alan Phelps says the job involved trying to match timbers as well.
“There were pieces of Tasmanian oak that we used, old pieces that had been lying around here. The original timber was likely Vic ash, which is a different species but similar, a kiln-dried timber,” he says.
“The older timber has a better grain. We tried to match colours; the older timber was probably dyed but we didn’t need to use as much colour. Time ages timber in different ways, and some of the colour will have come from that.
“David Young did all the machining and turning… it took about 22 hours altogether.”
Rector Tim Gaden says the costs of the new boards are met by the Department of Veteran Affairs.
The newly-made World War Two Roll of Honour Board will be dedicated by the Right Reverend Garry Weatherill, the Anglican Bishop of Ballarat, this Sunday, 22 October at 10 am. The service is open to anyone who would like to come and remember the sacrifice made by these young men of Ballarat West on fields of battle so far away.