Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Thomas Roydon Hogarth of Medindie was born at Middleton South Australia and later attended St Peter's College with his brothers Vance and William.
Thomas was named after his grandfather who as a pioneer pastoralist in South Australia entered into a partnership with John Warren to purchase Strangways Spring sheep and cattle station which they, and family members, ran for 60 years.
Immediately before enlisting in Adelaide on 27 December 1916, Thomas managed Tarcoola Station near Wentworth, New South Wales and perhaps this had a lot to do with him joining the 27th quota of reinforcements for the 3rd Light Horse Regiment.
Thomas sailed from Sydney aboard HMAT Port Sydney on 9 May 1917 and after disembarkation at Suez on 20 June was held in transit with the 1st Light Horse Training Regiment until 1 August 1917 when he joined the 3rd Light Horse Regiment.
Shortly after joining the unit he was admitted to the New Zealand Mounted Field Ambulance with a skin disorder and the following day was transferred by hospital train to El Arish and on to the 24th Stationary Hospital, Cairo. He rejoined his unit at Marakeb, Palestine on 7 September and on the afternoon of 31 October during the action at Beersheba was shot in the chest. He was evacuated to the New Zealand Mounted Field Ambulance and there succumbed to his wounds on 1 November 1917; he was 35 years of age. Trooper Thomas Roydon Hogarth was buried on 2 November and awarded the Military Medal posthumously two days later.
Citation - Military Medal
During action in front of BEERSHEBA, 31st October, 1917. For conspicuous gallantry as a stretcher bearer in action. He went out under heavy machine gun and rifle fire to bring in his Troop Leader who was mortally wounded. His fellow stretcher bearer was killed and he himself brought the Officer to shelter. Three times during the action he brought wounded men to shelter under heavy fire, and was eventually wounded seriously. He was a fine example of true courage and devotion to duty.
Slightly less than a year before he was killed, thirty of his friends and employees had gathered together on Tarcoola Station to wish him bon voyage and a safe return from the war; during the farewell they handed him a letter dated 22 December 1916. In the letter was a cheque with which the employees hoped he would ‘purchase a small memento’ for he and his ‘splendid wife’ to mark their stay at Tarcoola over the previous two years. The author of the letter which was signed by 30 friends and employees said he had many friends and no enemies and in light of the huge sacrifice he was making found words unavailable to express their feelings so simply wished him ‘God’s speed’ and hoped he would return with honours.
This extract from a letter dated 16 November 1917 was written by the Secretary of the Collegiate School of St. Peter to Trooper Hogarth’s widow on behalf of the School Board.
The council of Governors of the School desire me to convey to you an expression of their very sincere sympathy in the death of your husband at the battle front. They wish to say how proud the School is of him, as of all those who, with him, have so gloriously upheld the best traditions of the School and of the Empire. The Governors think you might like to know that it has been decided to erect a memorial in the School Chapel to record and perpetuate the name of all old scholars who in giving their lives for their country nobly acted up to the motto of the School: ‘PRO DEO ET PATRIA.’
3556 Trooper Vance Bowman Hogarth (OS) served with the 10th Light Horse and Lieutenant William Warren Bowman Hogarth MC, (OS) with 26th Battery 7th Field Artillery Brigade AIF; both survived the war.
In a letter to the Secretary of Defence dated 20 June 1918 Mrs Agnes Hogarth thanked the Honourable Minister for her husband’s Military Medal, his letter of sympathy and appreciation of her husband’s service and said she felt that it was the men who did not go to the front who were lost to their county, and not the men who fell there. ‘They will live on in the memory of the men who fought beside them and in the hearts of their women folk at home.’