Private Thomas Hill

By Lenore Frost

Thomas Hill was born in Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) in 1881, the son of John Hill and Jane, nee Glen.

Thomas was 19 when he married Edith Florence Wood of Port Melbourne in 1900.  Their son Arthur was born in that year.  The couple doesn’t appear to have been very interested in politics and they failed to register to vote for some years after they reached the age of 21.  They cannot be found in the Electoral Rolls until 1914 when they appear at 178 Athol St, Moonee Ponds, with Thomas’ occupation given as ‘Tobacco worker’. 

When the Great War began, Thomas was still only 33 years old, and he was keen to enlist.  The attestation form which he signed in July 1915 stated that he had previously been rejected because of height.  At 5 feet 3½ inches he was certainly a small soldier, but many of his comrades were not much taller. 

Thomas agreed to allot three-fifths of his wages to the support of his wife and child in his absence.  Originally assigned to train with 10 Battalion reinforcements, within a few weeks he was transferred to the 6 Battalion reinforcements.  During his training period he was charged with ‘Conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline', some incident having occurred at the Ascot Vale Camp Main Gate on 15 August 1915.  For this he was admonished.

Thomas embarked with 6 Inf Battalion on the Ceramic on 23 November 1915 and joined the Australian contingent in Egypt for training.  At the end of March 1916 he embarked at Alexandria for travel to Marseilles in France, disembarking there on 6 April 1916. 

His service record is not specific about where and when Thomas was taken on strength of  6 Battalion, but it was very actively engaged in frontline activities over the next few months in Fleurbaix in April, Erovingham in May, and Rue Marle in June.  In July the Battalion moved through Steenwerk, Strazeele, Varennes, and Albert  until they reached Pozieres.  Casualties up until this time had been persistent but light, but this changed when the Battalion became involved in attacks  on 28 and 29 July 1916. The Battalion continued to take heavy casualties throughout August, and in early September Thomas transferred to  4 Division Headquarters, having been classified ‘PB’, or Permanent Base duties.  The problem seems to have been flat feet, and accompanying pain when walking.  The constant marching from town to town in the previous 5 months, carrying full kit,  had its impact, though he did admit to having had flat feet prior to enlisting.  While on Base duties as a cook he had an unspecified injury to his foot which required a tenotomy, which is an operation to cut a tendon, to release or lengthen it. During this period, in October 1916, his only son Arthur was killed in action.

On 11 November 1917 Thomas was transferred to the Australian Employment Company, and he remained in this unit for the rest of his military service.   

He was transferred to England on 7 January 1919, and was on his way home by March of that year.  As a married man he would have had extra points for an early repatriation.

Thomas’s homecoming was possibly not what he had expected.  He disembarked in Melbourne on 16 May 1919, and before the end of the year he had filed a petition for divorce, citing Joseph Pope as a co-respondent[1]. Both Edith and Thomas Hill were listed at 178 Athol St, Moonee Ponds in the 1919 Electoral Roll, suggesting they did live together for a period when Arthur returned from the war.  Whether Edith subsequently went on to live with Joseph Pope who was named as the co-respondent is not clear – neither of them can be identified in subsequent electoral rolls.

Thomas asserted his right to his son’s medals as next of kin (and mentioned in passing that he had divorced his wife for adultery), and the text he supplied for his son’s entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Roll of Honour pointedly left the boy’s mother’s name off.

In 1922 Thomas remarried, the new bride being Alvie Christina Spence.  Thomas gave the address 19 Saunders St, Coburg in a letter to the Army in 1941, and the 1942 Electoral Roll shows Thomas, tobacco worker and Alvie, home duties, at that address.  The 1949 Electoral Roll includes at that address, in addition to Thomas Hill, a Thomas David Hill, plumber, who may have been a child of that marriage.  It is not clear whether there were other children. This second marriage appears also to have foundered, with Alvie Christina Hill living apart from her husband.  In 1949 she was residing in Albert Park, working as a machinist, and she was still there in the 1954.   

Thomas remained in Coburg for the rest of his life and died there in 1974 aged 92.  Alvie died in 1989, aged 88.

In 1931 Edith married Arthur Jenkins, also a returned serviceman.  Arthur had served with the 27  Infantry Battalion, embarking from his home town of Adelaide on 31 May 1915.  After marrying in Victoria, Edith and Arthur  lived in Adelaide, Edith writing to the Army from there in 1941 requesting a duplicate set of medals for her husband who had lost his, and enquiring about her son’s medals, which she had never received.  This caused an army functionary to write a note saying that the boy’s father had divorced her for adultery.  The father being the person with number one precedence in allocation of medals of deceased soldiers, there was never a real question as to her receiving them. Clearly Thomas would not hand them on for sentimental reasons.

[1]  Case no 452, 1919.

Sources: 

National Australian Archives B2455 series  (Arthur Hill and Thomas Hill)

VPRS 5335/P0 Divorce Index, 1861-1924

Victorian Electoral Rolls