Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

William is my First Cousin 4 Times removed.

William was born on January 17, 1873, the illegitimate son of Maggie Meharry of Killinchy woods. He likely came about due to an underage and out of wedlock pregnancy. William actually celebrated his birthday on the 7th, and never used his middle name having apparently never seen his birth registration. His wife, Wilhelmina Osbrough (Minnie) was born August 3rd 1879 at Gannawarra near Kerang, third of seven children of James Osbrough and Annie Bottriell. William and Minnie would be married on September 4, 1901.
William arrived in the colony of Victoria aboard the ship GREAT BRITAIN (which had just collided with the British ship Mysore on the way to the UK, and had lost an anchor) at 2 years of age in October 1875 with his grandparents Robert and Elizabeth, his mother, who he called aunty Maggie, aunty Georgina Nixon Meharry (married George William Adams, brother of Alfred Gaskin Adams) and an 11 year old step brother named James. They’d followed uncles William and Tom to fossick for gold in the Bendigo area, later farming in the Gannawarra district. William first grew up with his grandparents, and later his aunty (mother) Margaret and her new husband, John Ferguson.
William went to war in 1899 in South Africa in the 2nd Victorian Mounted rifles, 670 men strong. A large number of William’s unit were invalidated due to the extreme starvation and exhaustion caused by poor provisions and intense fighting.
Prior to William’s discharge, during a trek following from recent engagement to a new war zone, William and his company found a live shell was found in their provision wagon. William and a few of his friends would hide the shell, hoping on bringing it home as a souvenier, but it was soon discovered by their commanding officer, who ordered that the culprit dispose of it by burying it in the nearby quince orchard.
William returned to Australia on July 29 1900 after being shot in the leg at the Battle of Diamond Hill. Upon his return, he was dubbed ‘William of Kerang’ and praised as a war hero. A short year later, he would marry Wilhelmina Osbrough on Sempember 4, 1901, having eight children together. However, tragedy struck in 1907 when his father, John Ferguson, committed suicide with a shotgun following a cancer diagnosis. William, who had worked on the farm for years without pay on the promise of inheriting the farm, was left with nothing, no will had been left. He started from scratch in Barr creek, where his house would burn down on the night of his sixth child’s (Robert’s) birth, managing to save only the children, John’s shotgun, and the family bible. William began dairy farming in Gunbower Creek shortly after.
William and Wilhelmina retired from farming and moved to Kerang in the 1940s, and were highly regarded members of the community. In 1955, William discovered that the artillery shell which his war brothers had buried in 1900 had been accidentally rediscovered five years prior by the new owners of the quince farm, who had repurposed it as a doorstop. That year, due to its poor condition from its 50 years underground and from the constant hammering of the door, the shell exploded, killing multiple members of the South African family. The news of the accident gained the attention of the then 82 year old William, who explained to the news how the shell came to be in an area so far from the war zone.
Wilhelmina passed away in 1964, and William in 1966, both are buried in Kerang cemetery.