Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

No railway record card has been located for John BARNWELL, (Service Number 2281). On his enlistment papers he gives his calling as ‘powder monkey’, that is, a person skilled in the handling of explosives. The triennial lists of the railway staff include a John Barnwell working at Hawkesbury River in 1905 and Wardell Road to Glebe Island Railway in 1911. Both of these projects involved heavy excavation through rock and it is reasonable to deduce that Barnwell’s explosives’ skills might have been required, though the listing shows him as just a labourer. In 1914 he is shown working on the Flemington to Campsie Railway as ‘Purely Extra Staff’. This latter qualification, as a non-permanent employee, would explain the lack of an employment card.
Having been born at Millers Point, Sydney, in December 1875 Barnwell was more than 40-years-old when he enlisted in the AIF in May 1916. He left Australia, through Melbourne on ‘Port Lincoln’, but transferred to HMAT ‘Borda’ in Sierra Leone before arriving at Plymouth and two months later joined the 37th Battalion in Belgium, where he was killed in action on 10 October 1917. He was buried in the Bavaria House Cemetery 2¼ miles NE of Ypres, but relocated later to the White House Cemetery, St Jean, just NE of Ypres.
His military records include a letter from his widow, seeking a death certificate, so that she can claim a benefit from the ‘railway authorities’, thus establishing the link to earlier railway employment.
(NAA B2455-3051902)