Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Edwin Haskins Burne was the youngest of three sons to enlist of Thomas William and Margaret Letitia Burne of Oakey, Queensland. He had been in County Wicklow, Ireland and his family had moved to Australia in 1911. They had a property at Oakey and one at Taronga, in Queensland, which the sons helped to work.

Edwin was born in 1898 and enlisted a few weeks before his 17th birthday. He landed on Gallipoli as a 17-year-old Sergeant in the 25th Battalion, during September 1915.

He survived Gallipoli unscathed and went through 1916 involved in some heavy fighting at Pozieres and other places during 1916. He was slightly wounded in the head during May 1917.

His eldest brother, 3700 Lance Corporal Arthur Edward Thomas Burne M.M., 49th Battalion AIF, had been killed in action in Belgium on 12 October 1916, aged 23.

Another brother, 4742 Pte. Charles Radford Burne 15th Battalion AIF went missing at Bullecourt on 11 April 1917, aged 22.

Mr. W.G.L. Ramsey, who was the proprietor of the Oakey news agency and printers, on 27 July 1917, wrote a letter to Sir L.E. Groom who was then Australia’s assistant “Minister for Defence.

Dear Mr. Groom, I would be much obliged if you would please try to find out from the Defence Department the correct procedure to be followed in the case I shall lay before you and advise me accordingly.

At the beginning of the war a worthy family of this district numbered a father, mother, four sons and two daughters, and they were engaged in farming. Soon after the war commenced the third son, a well grown lad, 17 and a half years of age, by means of representing himself as 18, enlisted. He has risen to the rank of Sergeant and is now in England suffering from shell shock. Soon after he left Australia, the second son also enlisted, and was subsequently killed in action in France. Before this occurred, however, the eldest son also had gone to the front, and was reported missing since April 11th. About a month ago, the father of the family, Mr. T.W. Burne, was taken ill with pneumonia, and passed away after a few days.

Mrs. Burne is thus left to carry on the farm with only her two young daughters, and the youngest boy, a lad of about 12, and she finds it exceedingly hard, if not impossible, to carry on. What I want to find out is whether it would be possible, by application to the military authorities, to secure the discharge of Sergeant Edwin Burne, now in hospital in England, on account of the way in which his family affairs are suffering from his absence, and what form such application should take.

Commanding this matter to your courtesy and with kind regards, faithfully yours, W.G.L. Ramsey.”

Edwin Burne’s mother, Margaret, also wrote several times to Mr. Groom along the same lines, as did Edwin himself, during September 1917, from a Convalescent Camp in France, where he was recovering from a bout of gastritis.

Edwin’s return to Australia was approved at the highest levels, including the GOC AIF, General Birdwood, and he left England for Australia on 31 October 1917, for ‘family reasons.’

Edwin lived a long a fruitful life, and from newspaper reports he married in 1923 and was much involved at leadership levels in the local council, the RSL, and the sugar cane industry. He passed away in 1988 at 90 years of age.