HOSKING, John Benjamin Oswald
| Service Number: | 19644 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 28 October 1916 |
| Last Rank: | Corporal |
| Last Unit: | 15th Field Company Engineers |
| Born: | Longwood, Victoria, Australia, 1895 |
| Home Town: | Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria |
| Schooling: | University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Occupation: | Engineering Student |
| Died: | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 30 December 1975, cause of death not yet discovered |
| Cemetery: | Not yet discovered |
| Memorials: | Euroa Telegraph Park |
World War 1 Service
| 28 Oct 1916: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Sapper, 19644, Field Company Engineers | |
|---|---|---|
| 31 Oct 1917: | Involvement Sapper, 19644, Field Company Engineers, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '5' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Euripides embarkation_ship_number: A14 public_note: '' | |
| 31 Oct 1917: | Embarked Sapper, 19644, Field Company Engineers, HMAT Euripides, Sydney | |
| 15 May 1919: | Embarked AIF WW1, Corporal, 19644, 15th Field Company Engineers, per Port Melbourne | |
| 12 Sep 1919: | Discharged AIF WW1, Corporal, 19644, 15th Field Company Engineers |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Chris Buckley
John was the eldest of two children of John Henry Hosking (born 1870 at Blackwood, near Woodend in Victoria) and Margaret (Maggie) Anna Gleghorn (1867 born in Melbourne, Victoria). John Snr was a Railway Porter in 1893 when he married Maggie and they lived at Longwood, Victoria before moving to Woodend and New Gisborne with John Snr's employment. In 1909 John Snr became Station Master with Victoria Rail, and the family lived at diverse railway stations across Victoria until John Snr's death in 1957. Younger son Royce followed his father into the Railways, starting as a Junior Clerk in 1911 when he was fifteen years of age, and progressing from Station Master to Superintendent of Train Services when he was killed in a motor vehicle accident in 1956.
John was awarded scholarships to attend South Melbourne College and Melbourne University. He was an Engineering student when he enlisted in the AIF in 1916 as a Sapper. He served in France and was a T/Corporal (Service No:19644) with 15th Field Coy Engineers when he was Discharged in September 1919. John resumed work as a Draftsman with Johns & Waygood Engineering and married Alice Elizabeth Violet Bickford (born 1889 in Melbourne, Victoria) in 1919 in Sydney, NSW. Alice's Father (John Ernest Bickford) and two brothers and a Brother-in-Law also served in WWI.
In 1920 John was Chief Assistant at the Adelaide Observatory, and in 1922 as Physicist at the Melbourne Observatory, John was a member of the Victorian Government's party to observe the eclipse of the sun at Wallal in far north Western Australia. In 1925 John was awarded the Argus Scholarship and Stawell Research Scholarship in Engineering, and the Prof Wilson Prize in Maths and Natural Philosophy (Who's Who in Australia 1950; p 357). In 1923 John commenced employment as Designing Engineer with Melbourne Harbour Trust and progressed to Chief Engineer. John died in 1975 and Alice in 1985.