Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Private Richard George Woolhouse (Service No:W72100) had applied unsuccessfully in 1915 to enlist in the AIF, and on 26 April 1942 enlisted in the ACMF. Private Woolhouse served with 7th Battalion (Geraldton) VDC until Discharge on 15 October 1945.

Richard was born in Ashburton in the Pilbara, Western Australia in 1890, third of seven children of George Woolhouse (b1859 in Northam, Western Australia) and Anne Sims (b1863 at Greenbushes, Western Australia). George worked as Miner in the Murchison, and he and Anne married in 1885 in Geraldton. George and Ann lived Ashburton, Greenough and Onslow, where they raised their family and George was a Miner and Labourer.  By 1918 when Anne died, George was a Farmer at Crowther via Geraldton, moving to Rudd's Gully via Geraldton in the early 1920s, where he was a Labourer. George then worked at Eradu via Geraldton as a Farm Hand before retiring to Fremantle in the early 1930s.

Richard worked at Walkaway via Geraldton as a Farm Hand, and in 1917 at Bootenal via Greenough married Mary Dorothy Strange (b1890 in Beverley, Western Australia). Richard and Dorothy lived in Geraldton and the surrounding region, and Richard worked as a Repairer with WAGR - Pindar via Mullewa, Binnu, Geraldton and Yalgoo, and in the mid 1920s in Midland Junction. In the late 1920s the couple was living in Geraldton, where Richard found work as a Bag Sewer before moving in the early 1930s to Lockyer's Homestead in Goomalling, where he was a Labourer. By 1942, when he enlisted in the Army, Richard and Dorothy had settled in Walkaway, and Richard was a Sanitary Contractor with the Greenough Roads Board until retirement. Dorothy died in 1963 and Richard in 1968.