Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Rex English Budd was born in Lake Cargelligo in 1890. the youngest son of William and Hellen Ann ( Turton) Budd, he grew up in the town and on leaving school worked as a stockman on properties in the local area, at the end of 1914 he was part of a group that drove a large mob of cattel from the Lachlan district in Nsw to the Darling Downs in southern Queensland, on completion of the drive he made his way to the nearest Army Recruitment office in the town of Wondai Qld and on the 20th of January 1915 both he and his stock horse were accepted into the 11th Australian Light Horse Regiment. On his enlistment papers the name Reginald appears instead of Rex, (perhaps he preferred that name ) but there is no doubt it was him, as he used his second name of English and put his mothers name Mrs W Budd of Lake Cargelligo down as his next of kin. On the 20th of August 1915 he left Australia on the troop ship Shopshire. sailing to the Dardenalls where he took part in the Gallipoli campaing and after the Gallipoli evacuation, sailing to Port Said Egypt, where they regrouped and were assigned to the 4th Light Horse Brigade, once again fighting against the forces of the Ottoman Empire, in Egypt the Sinai Peninsula, Palestine and Jordan. In early 1919 during a battle in the Jordan Valley, he was exposed to a poisonious gas attack which damaged his lungs, causing him to be hospitalised, then on leaving Kanala Egypt, aboard the hospital ship Morvada, on the 20th of July 1819, he returned to Australia and after spending time in hospital in Sydney ,was discharged from the army on the 4th of November 1819. leaving Sydney,he caught the train home to Lake Cargelligo to see his family, In a conversation some years ago with his niece Mrs Grace Bonderson, she remembers him getting off the train still wearing his uniform and how as a child she was intrigued by the large Light Horse Ostrich feather in his slouch hat, the family then adjourning to a local Hotel with drinks all around to celebrate his return. Unabel to work because of reoccurring health issues with his lungs, he spent the next few years receiving medical treatment and at times visiting relatives, before becoming so ill, that in 1921 he was hospitalised in Sydney, dying there on the 15th of July of that year, and is buried in the Anglican section of the Rookwood cemetery New south Wales, plot number1695, plot section 6 / zone C.
Courtesy of his Niece, Mrs Grace Bonderson, Australian National Archives, NAA, B2455.