Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

NOONAN Mathew Francis 460 TPR
9th Light Horse Regiment
1894-1958

Three sons of John and Catherine (Sivyer) Noonan served in WW1. The first to enlist was Mathew, the youngest of the three on 29 September 1914 when he was 20. Both parents had died so Mathew named his eldest brother James as his next of kin. There were four more sons and two daughters. They all lived on a farm at Tamleugh.   Two other brothers enlisted after Mathew.

The 9th Light Horse Regiment was formed in Adelaide and trained in Melbourne between October 1914 and February 1915. Mathew sailed with the first draft from Melbourne on 11 February and arrived in Egypt on 14 March 1915, in time for the first landing on 25 April. As the Light Horse was considered unsuitable for the initial operations at Gallipoli, they were deployed into the infantry anywhere they were needed. This was at the Nek and Hill 60. However Mathew fell ill with influenza and spent two weeks in a CCS back in Egypt. He returned to Gallipoli until the evacuation in December.

Back in Egypt there was training at Serapeum before the 9th Light Horse was engaged in the desert campaign. Then we read in Mathew’s service records that he was wounded on 31 October 1917. Was this at the famous Charge at Beersheba to capture the wells before the Turks blew them up?   The water in these wells was vital for both the soldiers but more especially for the horses. For an exciting account of this charge Roland Perry’s book ‘The Australian Light Horse’ is well worth reading.

There was a letter published in the Shepparton Advertiser on 22 November 1917 – ‘Miss Bridget Noonan has received notice from the Department that her brother PTE Mathew Noonan was wounded. Pte Noonan has been for 3 years and 9 months at the war. He was for 10 months at Gallipoli; fought in the desert for some time and was fighting in Palestine up to the time of being wounded…’

Mathew was invalided to the 14th AGH at Abbassia on 28 November 1917 and then on to convalescence until 12 December. After a training camp at Moascar to get him fit again he was sent to the Australian Base Depot at Moascar. The service records have only one entry for 1918 so it is assumed that Mathew remained at the Base Depot until he boarded the HT Morvada for his return to Australia.

On 25 March 1919 he was discharged as unfit: the disability was not stated.

In 1920 Mathew married Mary Maud Quinton at Leeton. They moved to Yanco where Mathew worked in a horse racing stable. Mathew and Maud raised three children, including a daughter whom they called Bridget after Mathew’s sister, and two sons, Clarence and Jack.  In WW2 Mathew and his son Clarence enlisted; Mathew served as a cook.

Later in his life Mathew moved to Sydney, then back to the farm at Tamleugh where he died in 1958, aged 63. He is buried in the Violet Town Cemetery.

Service Medals:  1914-15 Star     British War Medal   Victory Medal.

Memorials:  Copper Plaque affixed to exterior wall of Memorial Hall, Violet Town

Tree no 35 was planted in 1917 by F Mills. In 2013 a Ceratonia siliqua - Carob Tree - was planted by grandnephew, Leon Beard.

© 2016 Sheila Burnell