Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Abraham James Campbell (1883-1918)
SN 263

Abraham James Campbell was the son of Mary Skinner and most likely William Campbell whom Mary married in 1886. Registered at birth in 1883 as James Skinner, he later used the name Abraham James Campbell. He grew up on Anlaby where William was a labourer until Mary acquired her own land at Tothills Belt in 1898. William, James and other members of the family worked on her farm.

War Service
James enlisted in November 1915 in Adelaide. He was attached to the 43rd Battalion and sent to the large army camp set up at Morphettville racecourse. He and his fellow volunteers trained in and around the district for several months, picking up the basics of route marching, gun and bayonet use and signalling. James and the battalion left Adelaide for ‘somewhere’ on HMAT Afric on 9 June 1916. Before their departure, they marched through the city, demonstrated some of their new skills at a concert and enjoyed a farewell dinner hosted by the Cheer Up Society.[1]
As a private James was paid 5s a day while training and 6s after he embarked. The government kept 1s of the daily rate until the soldier returned home. James allotted 2s of his daily pay to his mother.
The battalion travelled to England via Colombo, Port Suez and Marseilles then joined the massive encampment on Salisbury Plain. They continued training until they were sent to northern France in November 1916.
They arrived in the notorious ‘Somme winter’ of 1916-17. The weather was bitterly cold and the earth was sodden or frozen. The 43rd Battalion was sent to Steenwerck near Armentières to defend the front lines a few kilometres away. James and his fellow soldiers dug trenches in the cold and wet, exchanged fire with the enemy, conducted reconnaissance in the local area and carried out ‘silent raids’ behind the lines. German aeroplanes attacked them from overhead.
The first week of February 1917, according to the battalion diary, was fairly quiet in terms of bombardment and machine gun activity.[2] James, however, was ill. Before he embarked he had been treated for gonorrhoea, tonsillitis and a growth on his lip. In France growths began to appear in his neck. He was evacuated and after five months in No 3 Australian General Hospital in Brighton, England he was sent back to his unit in July 1917.
In one way James was fortunate. He had escaped the bitter fighting of the Battle of Messines the previous month in which the 43rd Battalion suffered heavy casualties. Perhaps he insisted on re-joining his unit in France, perhaps he had no choice. He was clearly ill and the lumps in his neck had worsened. Within days he was again invalided out via a casualty clearing station to a hospital in Boulogne and then to a ship to England. He was admitted to the War Hospital in Norfolk on 17 July in a serious condition. Two months later he was sent back to Australia and discharged as permanently unfit.
James was admitted to No 7 Australian General Hospital at Keswick shortly after his return in November 1917. His disease progressed quickly and he died on 6 February 1918 with Mary, his mother, at his bedside. He was buried in West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide.
By the time James’s service medals became available in 1922 William had died and his mother claimed them as his next of kin. Army Base Records queried this but she argued her case for several months and the army finally despatched James’s British War Medal and his Victory Medal. The wording on the memorial plaque issued to the family had to be amended from Abraham Jones Campbell to Abraham James Campbell. Through the determination of his (step)sister, he was later included in the Roll of Honour signifying he died of wounds.
James was thirty-four years old when he died. In twenty months in the AIF he had spent as much time in hospital as at the front. Nevertheless, he had seen more of the world than all the members of his immediate family combined ever would: Colombo, the Suez, Marseilles, England and northern France. Wishing perhaps that his death had come in different circumstances, his family fabricated the story that he had been killed on a battlefield in Mesopotamia.[3] In doing so they unwittingly detracted from his fighting and survival in the horrendous conditions of the Somme.

This biography was originally published in Janet and Suzanne Scarfe, 'The Campbells of Anlaby 1860-1920' (2021). 
[1] Abraham James Campbell, Service Record, B2455, National Archives of Australia (NAA). A photo of the farewell dinner appeared in the Observer, 10 June 1916, p24
[2] The 43rd Infantry Battalion diary is at AWM 4/23/60, Australian War Memorial
[3] Denise nee Barfield, ‘The Descendants of the Mysterious “J Campbell”’, c2017, privately circulated, p21