Cecil Roy (Roy) HAMBRIDGE

HAMBRIDGE, Cecil Roy

Service Number: 3390
Enlisted: 19 September 1916
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 58th Infantry Battalion
Born: Coburg, Moreland - Victoria, Australia, 17 July 1898
Home Town: Coburg, Moreland, Victoria
Schooling: Not yet discovered
Occupation: Driver/grocer/post master
Died: Geelong, resident of Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia, 7 January 1968, aged 69 years, cause of death not yet discovered
Cemetery: Queenscliff Cemetery, Victoria, Australia
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World War 1 Service

19 Sep 1916: Enlisted AIF WW1, Driver, 3390
16 Jul 1917: Involvement Private, 3390, 58th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '20' embarkation_place: Melbourne embarkation_ship: HMAT Port Melbourne embarkation_ship_number: A16 public_note: ''
16 Jul 1917: Embarked Private, 3390, 58th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Port Melbourne, Melbourne

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Biography contributed by Udo Fischer

Cecil Roy HAMBRIDGE was my godfather, Uncle Roy ; a quiet, affable, warm man, patient & calm who rolled his own cigarettes, and smoked a pipe of an evening, kept a vegetable garden and kept his EK Holden (Special, two-toned white and maroon) in show room condition. Married Irene Mabel STEWART in 1925 in Melbourne, my Auntie Rene - they had no children, but became the grandparents I never knew, a kind and loving couple who had retired to the coastal town of Queenscliff when I was very little, maybe 2 or 3, where we spent many happy school holidays whilst growing up. He told some stories of his army service in WW1, suitable for a child to hear, he was an ambulance driver. I've since learned that two of his brothers also signed up for military service in WW 1.

Sometimes he would drive me to the car park overlooking The Heads at Queenscliff, and we would sit quietly together in the clean smelling car and watch through his binoculars the Pilot Ship bring in larger ships through The Heads into Port Phillip Bay.

They met my parents in the 1950s, (my parents had migrated to Australia in 1949 from Austria via Naples, my mother from Hungary, my father ethnic German from Transylvania, a Hungarian territory that became part of Romania soon after his birth). My mother had opened a delicatessen in Glenferrie Rd. Hawthorn, and Uncle Roy and Auntie Rene ran the post office nearby, a friendship was struck, that lasted their liftetime, and they became part of our family.

Uncle Roy was often unwell, and spent lengthy periods in The Repat hospital in Heidelberg, Melbourne. I was too young to know much, but I recall talk of his illness being related to his war service. Auntie Rene would come up from Queenscliff, having taken a bus to Geelong, then train to Spencer Street Station (now Southern Cross Station) where we would pick her up and she would stay with us and we would go and visit Uncle Roy at The Repat, where he was usually in the back wards. She would often bring fresh fish from the boats - flatheads or whiting, a particular treat for my father ; our family was Catholic (although my father was not), as were Uncle Roy and Auntie Rene (I later learned that it was Auntie Rene who persuaded my mother back to The Church), so we did not eat meat on Fridays (until the Vatican II reforms) so fresh fish on Fridays was a bit special, fresh fish being hard to come by in the suburbs of Melbourne back then.

Uncle Roy gradually became more unwell, and spent a lot of time in Geelong hospital, where he died in 1968, age 70. Auntie Rene sold the big house and moved to a more suitable one in Queenscliff where we continued to visit on school holidays, and she would sometimes visit us in Melbourne. Very sadly, she eventually succumbed to an aggressive form of Alzheimer's Disease, and spent her last years in a near vegetative state in care. A warm, loving and grandmotherly woman, they are both missed even today.

Some notes on Uncle Roy's family, his father was Henry (Harry) HAMBRIDGE (1865-1939), born to a wealthy family in London, he did not take up the family business in Insurance (his father was one of the founders of what is today the Royal London Insurance company) and Harry seems to have been keen to get away from England, and became a seaman, settling in Melbourne ; he married Sebina Francesca CULLEN (1867-1916), a nurse, at St Bridget's in Fitzroy in 1886 and they lived in Coburg, Melbourne ('Emetta' 175 Bell St, Coburg). Harry became a grocer in Coburg, but worked with for the Land & Survey Department at the time of Sebina's death.

Uncle Roy's siblings were :

Sebina Mary HAMBRIDGE, who worked at Sunbury Asylum, as did Auntie Rene's step-father, Edwin STAGOLL, and married John W English at St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne in 1917

Henry Gilmore HAMBRIDGE (1889 - 1958) married Louise Hannah DAVIS in 1921, no children

William Percival (Percy or Mick) HAMBRIDGE 1891-1951, served in WW1 (9th Batallion, 1st AIF), married Kathleen Regina ANDREWS (previously married to John David POORE aka HOBBS & MUNRO), they had no children but she had children from her first marriage - his death notice thanks the 'Postal & Returned Servicemen GPO Spencer Street'

Clarence Leslie (Les) HAMBRIDGE 1894 - 1944 (dies Bridgewater on Loddon, Victoria), served in WW 1 with 61st Batallion, 1st AIF, married Jean DAVIDSON, no children found

Eileen Olive (Elly) HAMBRIDGE 1896 - ? marries John Cyril Fooks LEWIS in 1918

Veronica (Ron or Ronnie) Margaret HAMBRIDGE (1904 - ?) marries Arthur Gordon WILLIAMS of Quambatook who dies of war injuries 24th May 1937 age 47 at Quambatook, children Jack, Marie, Shirley & Rhonda and widow Ronnie marries secondly HOGAN

Eric George Alphonsus (Phonse) HAMBRIDGE 1907 - 1976, marries Annie Frost LUKE (1906 - 1987) in 1931 at Kangaroo Flat, Bendigo - one daughter Joan Lorraine HAMBRIDGE (1934 - 1984).

Father Harry HAMBRIDGE marries secondly Cath HAASE in 1921 at Kangaroo Flat, Bendigo, Victoria

Further informaton on Uncle Roy's HAMBRIDGE family in England, and Auntie Rene's family (STEWART GUGGER MASTERSON) is available.

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