RIDGWAY, Walter
| Service Number: | 296 |
|---|---|
| Enlisted: | Not yet discovered |
| Last Rank: | Private |
| Last Unit: | 22nd Machine Gun Company |
| Born: | Sydney, New South Wales Australia , 6 April 1894 |
| Home Town: | Redfern, City of Sydney, New South Wales |
| Schooling: | Not yet discovered |
| Occupation: | Machinist |
| Died: | Killed in Action, Belgium, 7 October 1917, aged 23 years |
| Cemetery: |
Poelcapelle British Cemetery |
| Memorials: | Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour |
World War 1 Service
| 1 May 1916: | Involvement Private, 296, 5th Machine Gun Company, Third Ypres, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '21' embarkation_place: Sydney embarkation_ship: HMAT Benalla embarkation_ship_number: A24 public_note: '' | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 May 1916: | Embarked Private, 296, 5th Machine Gun Company, HMAT Benalla, Sydney | |
| 7 Oct 1917: | Involvement Private, 296, 22nd Machine Gun Company, Third Ypres, --- :awm_ww1_roll_of_honour_import: awm_service_number: 296 awm_unit: 22nd Australian Machine Gun Company awm_rank: Private awm_died_date: 1917-10-07 |
A great uncle
I am a great nephew of Walter, on my mothers side. I am a retired soldier from the ARA, with 21 years of service.
Walter's family lived at 69 Park St in Merrickville in inner Sydney. It was a small one bedroom workers terrace. There were 11 people living there, including Walter.
On the birth of Rosemary (my mother), the ninth child, the state took my mother into care, and forstered her out to another family. For the rest of her life she had nothing to do with the Ridgway's, assuming that she had been given up by the family, rather than taken by the state.
More recently we have been doing research into the Ridgway's.
In 2024 I was the first member of the larger Ridgway (Ames) family to visit Walter's grave at Poelcapple War Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium. I have calculated where Walter was actually killed, mainly from Red Cross reports from his comrades. He was killed at the village of Zonnebeke on the edge of Polygon Wood, as part of the Third Battle of Ypres.
Submitted 28 July 2025 by Neal Ames
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