Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Archibald White McKenzie was born in West Maitland New South Wales in 1883. His mother and father, Martha Elizabeth McKenzie nee Hughes and Archibald Daniel McKenzie, came from the Molong and Singleton areas respectively. His maternal grandparents hailed from Ireland and England. His paternal grandparents were born on the west coast of Scotland near Oban. Archibald, known as ‘Archie’, was the eldest child of Martha and father Archibald’s six children. Archie’s second name was most probably in honour of Reverend James S. White, who baptised father Archibald when he was born and was then the Officiating Minister who married his parents 28 years later.

Both Archie’s parents were public school teachers. During the late 1880s his father was the Head Teacher at the West Maitland Superior Public School and eventually the Senior Inspector of Schools for the Education Department based in Sydney. Music and singalongs around the piano were part of Archie’s home life and two of his siblings, Warwick and Ella, were world-class musicians.

Archie followed in both his mother’s and father’s footsteps. He first enrolled as a ‘Probationary Teacher’ at the tender age of 16 at the East Orange Public School February 1899. He moved to Blackheath Public School the following year. In the first half of 1904 he was a Probationary Teacher at the Campfield Pubic School and for the second half of that year he taught at the Megalong Public School. In June 1905 Archie’s appointment to the Department of Education was ‘Life Assured’. At some stage he also undertook 2 years training with the Senior Cadets. Archie was ‘invited to act as Aid to Alma’ in the Broken Hill Public School from July 1907.

Archie had been teaching for 17 years when he enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force on the 21st January 1916. He was teaching at Elsmore Public School when he signed up and the school gave him a gold fob engraved ‘Presented to A W McKenzie Esq. by the Children of Elsmore School on His Departure for the Front 1916’. According to his AIF enlistment papers, he was 32 years and 3 months when he signed up. Also entered in his enlistment papers is that Archie had dark hair and was ‘going bald’. It must have been a significant challenge for a middle aged man, as he would have been regarded then, who had spent 17 years in country town public schools as a teacher to follow his brothers and his fellow Australians across the world to an uncertain future.

Archie’s main active service was undertaken in France from April to August 1917. Later that year Archie spent time in a war hospital and was still hospitalised in February 1918 when he was ‘granted balance of leave’. By this stage his family would have advised him of his younger brother Doug’s premature death at Poziéres. Perhaps Archie was suffering from combat stress. Combat stress disorder was first documented in the latter half of the 19th century. The term ‘shell shock’ was then coined during WW1 in response to the horrific circumstances that soldiers faced whilst engaged in trench warfare. For many soldiers this then developed into what was to become known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Archie was discharged from duty on 17th May 1918, his papers citing ‘cardiac insufficiency’. Bound for Australia he left England on the 5th July 1918 on the H.M.A.T. Ruahine and was discharged from the AIF ‘in consequence of medical unfitness’ on 30th November 1918. He would have been warmly embraced on his return by his family.

Archie returned to his teaching at the Elsmore Public School in 1919. It must have been a psychologically confronting experience for him in many ways, particularly in view of the situation that Archie, along with the rest of his school, was part of the welcoming ceremony for returned soldier George Cartwright who was awarded a Victoria Cross for his ‘gallant service’ in France.

Archie was moved around by the Education Department to teach in public schools as needed. He taught at the Balmain Pubic School from 1923 to 1925 and at Smith Street Public School from 1927 to 1928. As Australia headed towards the Great Depression, Archie had been in the Public School system for nearly 30 years. He lists his profession as ‘Teacher’ up until 1963.

Archie’s father Archibald died in 1925. From 1933 Archie lived with his mother Martha, his brother Alister Warwick McKenzie (always known as Warwick McKenzie) and his sister Ella McKenzie. Archie would have enjoyed Warwick’s violin playing and Ella’s skills as a concert pianist at the many concerts they performed. He came home from his teaching days to the sounds of music, as both Warwick and Ella were teachers of their respective instruments during the latter years of their careers.

Although his cremation plaque reads ‘2276 Private A.W. McKenzie 45th Battalion’, Archie’s memory would have been kept alive in the minds of the 1000s of students he encountered during his decades of teaching for the N.S.W. Department of Education. And perhaps his brother Warwick was playing Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major in the bedroom next to his when Archie died on the 11th August 1968.

Sally McKenzie May 2020