Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Private John Graham Sandilands (Service No:V5524) served in the ACMF from 22 August 1940 to 13 October 1941 with 7th Auxiliary Horse Transport Corps. Private Sandilands served in the Boer War (Private; Service No:152) with 2nd Victoria Mounted Rifles and in the AIF in WWI (Gunner; Service No:1227) in the Middle East and on the Western Front. Private Sandilands put his birthdate forward four years to enlist in the ACMF, and was Discharged as medically unfit - a result of complications from surgical scars from an appendectomy in Egypt in WWI.

Jack was born in Tallygaroopna via Shepparton, Victoria in 1881, eleventh of eighteen children of Henry George Sandilands (b1937 in Middlesex, England) and Lucy Hicks (b1847 in Bulleen, Victoria). Henry immigrated with his parents and siblings in the early 1940s, and was a Labourer when he and Lucy married in 1864 in Melbourne, where they lived and Henry was a Labourer. By the late 1870s Henry and Lucy had settled at Tallygaroopna via Shepparton where they raised their family and Henry was a Farmer.

Jack worked on the family farm as a Farm Hand and in 1910 in Melbourne, Victoria married Louisa Amelia Schwerkolt (b1890 in Mitcham, Melbourne, Victoria). By 1912 Jack and Louisa had moved to Western Australia where they lived in Wagin (Jack was a Farm Hand) and Fremantle (Jack was a Labourer) before moving to Perth where Jack worked as a Shopkeeper and Machinery Agent and Fitter before enlsiting in WWI. Following his Discharge, Jack and Louisa settled in Melbourne where Jack was a Shopkeeper and Tramways Employee. In the early 1920s they were succesful in an application for land under the 1915 Lands Act and settled at Barwidgee via Myrtleford, where Jack was a Dairy Farmer. By 1929 they had left the farm and settled in Shepparton, where Jack was a Labourer before moving to Melbourne in the early 1940s. Jack worked as a Labourer in Melbourne, where he died in 1958 and Louisa in 1966.