Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

UNIT NUMBER 5115 Edward Henry Higgins was better known as Ned. A Busselton lad born in 1897, Ned grew up in a hard working family. In 1909 while his parents were busy running a livery business tending the six horses that pulled the coach from Busselton to Augusta and providing meals for the travelers, Ned was attending the local school. When WW1 started, Ned was 18 years old. He was working as a farmer and had already earned himself a good reputation as a very talented horse breaker. Ned enlisted at Bunbury at the end of January 1916 and spent two months at Blackboy Hill Army Camp learning the skills of the soldier. Two months later, Ned and his cohort marched aboard the HMAT A9 “Shropshire” at the rank of private. Joining the 11th Battalion, 16th Reinforcements, Ned sailed with other local men, William Sparks, William Crellin and Les Mann of the 16th Battalion. To relieve the tedium of the voyage, boxing matches were held and perhaps because of his smaller physique, Ned did very well - despite claiming he had no particular skills! Ned celebrated his 19th birthday aboard the “Shropshire” but an outbreak of mumps was probably not the present that young Ned would have wished for himself. Arriving in France at Etaples in July 1916, Ned was sent to the 24th General Hospital for three weeks. From here Ned had his baptism of fire in the Battle of the Somme, joining the fighters in the trenches only days after the worst casualties the unit had ever seen. During the next month, Ned was chosen to trial the army’s new gas masks. Unbeknownst to him, he had a faulty mask and was gassed in the trials which again had him back in hospital for a month. His return to his unit saw him fighting for Hill 60 at Ypres. Winter came, and the troops settled in to endure the bitter cold and wet conditions: body lice, rats and battle were all to be stoically endured in misery by the young Ned and the other men around him. March 1917, and again in the thick of it at the Battle of the Somme, Ned was again gassed and hospitalised at the 1st Australian General Hospital at Rouen for three weeks. Leave was not to come until October of that year but Ned was again hospitalised in November diagnosed with diphtheria. March 1918 saw him hospitalised again with bronchitis. Some relief came when Ned was dispatched to join the Surgical Team 2nd Army for three months and he rejoined the 11th in mid September 1918. With the war over, January 1919 found Ned caring for the wounded that had not yet been mobilized back to England. In March he was shipped back to Sutton Veny on the south coast of England and given the temporary rank of corporal. Finally his own orders for transport back to Australia arrived and he travelled as nursing staff aboard the “Karmala”. Ned received his honorable discharge, medically unfit, from the army October 1 1919. Using Ned’s pay, Ned’s father bought him a block of land in what is now Margaret River’s town site. Ned moved to Busselton and went into partnership breaking horses, but sadly his partner ran off with the money and the small house Ned was living in burnt down, so he returned to Margaret River. But his medical training stood him in good stead. As the town was without a vet, everyone brought their animals to Ned to treat and Ned did this very capably indeed. December 3 1926 Ned married Elva Henderson of Fremantle. They lived and worked in Margaret River, but Ned suffered the effects of gassing all his life. Short of breath on exertion and with constant trips to Hollywood Repatriation Hospital in Perth, Ned’s life ended March 18 1960. He is buried at Karrakatta cemetery and Elva lies nearby. 1914/15 Star British War Medal Victory Medal