Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Dave was born on his parent’s farm at Yanyarrie on 11 October 1894. His mother died when he was two, leaving his father to raise him and his older brother Jim. Several years later, his father remarried and had seven more children. He began school at the age of seven, as he had been needed to work full time of his family’s farm. In 1912, the family sold the farm, and moved to Glenelg. Where they purchased a business, which comprised with a boarding house and grocery shop. At this time, Dave did many odd jobs. Skills he learned on the farm such as blacksmithing and shearing became handy skills that helped him find future employment. He also played football for the Glenelg Imperials prior to Glenelg being admitted to the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).

When war broke out in Europe in the year 1914, Dave, like many other young Australians, joined the AIF in February in 1915. For the next four and a half years, he served in Egypt and on the western front. In August 1916, he was involved in a battle in the Somme that almost cost him his life, when he was wounded by a German shell. After being partly buried by the blast for three hours, a rescue party dug him out and took him to a field hospital. Shell fragments that entered his head behind his eyes blinded him for the next three weeks and his sight only returned after operations and ancillary treatment. However, none of his fourteen mates who were in the shelter with him at the time was ever found. Dave returned home from the war.

When he returned from the war, he moved to Gawler and lived with his cousin, but moved about from the city to the bush and worked at various jobs. He worked at a big engineering factory in Gawler, which manufactured water fountains, and worked for some time at Holden. While he was working on the construction of the gasometer, gas fumes overcame him, which were extremely detrimental to his health, both physically and psychologically, as memories of German gassings in France came flooding back. He also created the weather vane of top of Glenelg town hall and worked on the train lines between Adelaide and Willunga. In 1933, after a long courtship, he married Delia Shinnick. They had six children, and lived in Gawler for the rest of their lives. Dave continued to have many varied jobs throughout his life; he at times had ill health and was diagnosed with diabetes. He had thought he had ongoing effects from the gassings in France during the war, but this could have been early symptoms of diabetes. Diabetes induced circulation problems and the remains of shrapnel in his leg led to it being amputated below the knee, in his later life. He had a speedy recovery and was equipped with a prosthetic leg. He died 4 years late on the 26th on January 1980, at age 85.