WRIGHT, Theodore Willard
| Service Number: | 937 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | 15 February 1916, Mount Gambier, South Australia |
| Last Rank: | Corporal |
| Last Unit: | 43rd Infantry Battalion |
| Born: | Mount Gambier, South Australia, 30 December 1892 |
| Home Town: | Mount Gambier, Mount Gambier, South Australia |
| Schooling: | Mount Gambier State School and Mount Gambier Grammar School, Mount Gambier High School |
| Occupation: | Monoline operator |
| Died: | Killed in Action, Belgium, 31 July 1917, aged 24 years |
| Cemetery: |
No known grave - "Known Unto God" |
| Memorials: | Adelaide National War Memorial, Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Kent Town Wesleyan Methodist Church WW1 Honour Roll, Menin Gate Memorial (Commonwealth Memorial to the Missing of the Ypres Salient), Mount Gambier High School Great War Roll of Honor, Mount Gambier War Memorial, Payneham Road Uniting (Methodist) Church Honor Roll, Payneham Roll of Honour, St Peters Heroes War Memorial |
World War 1 Service
| 15 Feb 1916: | Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 937, Mount Gambier, South Australia | |
|---|---|---|
| 9 Jun 1916: | Involvement AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, 937, 43rd Infantry Battalion, Enlistment/Embarkation WW1, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '18' embarkation_place: Adelaide embarkation_ship: HMAT Afric embarkation_ship_number: A19 public_note: '' | |
| 9 Jun 1916: | Embarked AIF WW1, Lance Corporal, 937, 43rd Infantry Battalion, HMAT Afric, Adelaide | |
| 31 Jul 1917: | Involvement AIF WW1, Corporal, 937, 43rd Infantry Battalion, Warneton, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 937 awm_unit: 43rd Australian Infantry Battalion awm_rank: Corporal awm_died_date: 1917-07-31 |
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Add my storyBiography contributed by Graeme Roulstone
Theodore Willard Wright was born at Mount Gambier on 30 December 1892, son of Joseph and Alice Jane Wright. He attended Mount Gambier Grammar School before being enrolled at Mount Gambier High School on 21 January 1907 by his father, Joseph Wright, carpenter, of North Terrace, Mount Gambier. He left the school on 20 December 1907. A report of his death published in the Border Watch said:
He was a native of Mount Gambier, and lived here up till a few years ago. He recently returned to Mount Gambier, and was employed as a monoline operator at the [local newspaper the South Eastern] "Star"278 Office when he enlisted about 18 months ago. He made repeated attempts to enlist, but was unsuccessful owing to dental defects … [He had been] a prominent member of the Methodist Young Men’s Class and the Methodist Tennis Club while in Mount Gambier …
He enlisted at Mount Gambier (23, monoline operator, single, Methodist) on 13 February 1916, was promoted to Lance Corporal on 1 June 1916, just before embarking from Adelaide on the ‘Afric’ on 9 June 1916 attached to the 43rd Battalion. He disembarked at Marseilles in France on 20 July 1916. From here he travelled to England where he underwent further training, was promoted to the rank of Corporal on 22 November 1916 and embarked with his battalion for France three days later. He attended a course of instruction at the Lewis Gun School between 29 May and 17 June 1917. He was wounded in action on 31 July 1917, died later the same day, and is listed on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium.
The Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau file provides some insight into the circumstances of his death, though there are differences in the accounts given. At least three of the men who responded to Red Cross inquirers were men who would have known him in Mount Gambier before the war (971 Private Thorwald Emil Lear Kook, 3324 Private Francis Connolly Tormay, and 6410 Horace Eldred Jarrad) and one of these, Jarrad, had been a workmate of Wright, though Jarrad was from a different unit and his report was probably based on hearsay. The most likely scenario seems to have been the account given by 523 Sergeant James Maxwell Mitchell:
We went over at Warneton on 31 July and took some strong points. Wright was with us and we established strong points of our own and Wright, who was a Cpl [Corporal]. Was in charge of his section. A shell came over and he got a nasty wound in the leg as he attempted to go back to the D/S [Dressing Station] he got a sniper’s bullet in the head which killed him instantly.
Death as a result of a sniper is also indicated in the accounts of 2526 Private Walter Bruce Murray and 824 Cecil William Richards, both of the 43rd Battalion. Others such as Kook who reported him having been killed by a shell probably saw him after he had been wounded and assumed he died soon after from these wounds.
Published in Ours: the origins and early years of Mount Gambier High School and Old Scholars who served in the Great European War by Graeme Roulstone
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