Great Sydney Central Station Honour Board
No railway employment record card can be found for Henry William BLADIN (Service Number 148). There is a single entry in the NSW Government Gazette for a William Henry Bladin as a temporary porter at St Peters on 31 December 1914. According to his National Archives file he was born at Sale, Victoria about August 1886. In his enlistment papers, of 24 August 1914, he gives his calling as a ‘Railway Porter’. It would thus seem that Bladin joined the NSW Railways in some casual position earlier in 1914, enlisted in August, but was still nominally employed as a porter at St Peters in December, though he had embarked from Sydney on 20 October 1914 on HMAT ‘Euripides’.
Later, for the triennial listing of the staff at its next occurrence in 1917, several thousand employees were listed separately as ‘Serving with the AIF’, but perhaps in 1914 this sophistication had not developed.
Bladin had been assigned to the 1st Field Ambulance from the day of his enlistment. While training in Egypt he was given seven days detention for conduct to the prejudice of good Order & Military Discipline to wit: - Gambling.
He was given Special Mention in Divisional Orders for acts of gallantry or valuable services during the period of 6th May 1915 to 18th June 1915 at Gallipoli. He spent much of the latter period of the Gallipoli campaign in hospital on Mudros or in Egypt with various illnesses, returning to Anzac a month before the evacuation.
From Egypt he travelled to France where he served on the Western Front.
He was promoted to Lance Corporal in August 1916 but reverted to Private at his own request in May 1917. On 27 October 1916 he was awarded the Military Medal. He was wounded (Multiple gunshot wounds) in action on 9 April 1917 and succumbed to those injuries on 14 April 1917.
Despite the paucity of surviving records of railway employment, the military files include letters from the NSWGR&T Chief Accountant enquiring as to the date of death, so there is no doubt that the right soldier has been identified.
(Bladin’s brother, Captain J S Bladin was serving in the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces as a Salvation Army chaplain.)
He is buried in the St Sever Cemetery Extension, Haute-Normandie, France
(NAA B2455-3088941)
Submitted 11 May 2023
by John Oakes
