Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Alfred Henry ("Alf") Skinner was born in Auburn SA in March 1876, to George Skinner, a mason from Kent in England, and Jane nee Brown from Coatbridge near Glasgow.
The family moved to Goodwood soon after his birth, where Alf went to school, and where most of his eleven siblings were born. When Alf was thirteen most of his family moved to WA, but Alf remained in Adelaide with an elder brother and went into the building trade as a "brickie".
In 1903 Alf married Jane Hickey, an Adelaide-born Irish girl, and they went on to have a family of eight children.
In December 1915 aged nearly 40, Alf enlisted (putting his age as "35y 8m") in the AIF and on arrival in Egypt in March 1916 was transferred into the 50th Batt and with them saw service in the Western Front trenches in the Battle of Mouquet Farm in the "bleak winter" of 1916, but was later moved to ABDB Etaples, where he was (temporarily) promoted to A/Corpl, before transfer to hospital in England due to "Chronic Rheumatism".
Alf returned home in late 1918 and built their own brick home in Thebarton (still standing), which they then lost to the bank early in the 1930s Depression, leaving them to spend the rest of their days in a string of small rented row cottages in the Adelaide CBD where they got by on his work as a brickie, along with a small war pension.
In Sept 1949 Alf died of cancer in one of these cottages in Bartels St, and was buried in the AIF cemetery in West Tce in the presence of his wife, several of his siblings, his children, and some of his many grandchildren.