Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Reginald Charles GROUSE and Elizabeth Ellen MELLOR

Reginald Charles Grouse was born in Hammersmith, London, in December, 1889, the son of John Nathaniel Grouse (born Jacob Nathan) and Lauretta Sarah Grouse (nee Letherbarrow). John Nathaniel was born in 1859 in Westminster, London. In 1881 he was listed on the census as an actor in London. In 1891 he was a furniture salesman in Fulham, Middlesex. His father had been born Joseph Groiecki in Kolo, Poland but had changed the surname to Grouse when he moved the family to England somewhere between 1844 and 1861.

In 1894 John and Lauretta emigrated to Sydney, Australia with their four children. Reginald, the third child, was four years old. Four further children were born in Australia. In Sydney, John worked as a master tailor at David Jones, and when Reg was old enough, he was apprenticed to his father as a tailor’s cutter. John Grouse is remembered as a charming and likeable womanizer who went bankrupt twice in his lifetime and died in 1937.

Elizabeth Ellen Mellor was born on the 25th of November, 1885 in Oldham, near Manchester in Lancashire. Her father Thomas Mellor, was born in 1856 and was a bandmaster of brass bands in England. Looking for opportunities in Australia, he emigrated in 1887 and the family, his wife Mary and two children joined him in 1888. For the two year old Elizabeth, the journey was made more arduous by contracting measles, which meant the family had to be offloaded in Naples to avoid an outbreak on the ship, and joined another ship when the disease had run its course. The family spent time in Kalgoorlie, W.A. and Timaroo New Zealand, where Thomas worked as a bandleader, before settling in Newtown, Sydney, where he was leader of the Newtown Brass Band and where two more children were born. Thomas is remembered as an autocratic authoritarian who later left his wife for a married woman (Mrs Maddern). The two sons also became professional musicians- Thomas Meyerbeer as First Trumpet in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and George Strauss as Bandleader of the RSL Brass Band in Perth.

Elizabeth, known as Lizzie, was something of a musical prodigy, and was taken out of school early by her father to concentrate on piano, which she practiced five to seven hours per day. She was a favourite of the Governor’s wife, and played many concerts at Government House, Sydney, from the age of five. She played trumpet as a second instrument and won many eisteddfods as a young pianist. At the age of seven, she was engaged as solo pianist for the Coogee Palace Aquarium concerts, where she was billed as “The Little Musical Wonder”. She played piano as soloist and accompanist at the Newtown Brass Band concerts for the next 15 years. At the age of 20 (she now called herself Betty Mellor) she played a concert in the Sydney Town Hall, where she had a memory lapse- from then on, although she could sight read anything, she lost her confidence to memorize music, which curtailed her concert career. In her early 20s she was engaged to Tom Tester, an older man who was the Mayor of Young- Tom however was caught out in a dalliance with a local lass and the engagement was broken off. Shortly after, Elizabeth met Reginald Charles Grouse and, after a brief courtship, they eloped, much against the wishes of his Jewish family, and married in a registry office in 1910. He was 22 and she was 25.

John Richard (Dick) was born in 1911 and Laurette Esther in 1914. Reg did not enlist at the outbreak of the First World War, but, in 1916, was sent a white feather in the post and decided to volunteer, very much against the wishes of his wife. At the time, he was working at David Jones, and Elizabeth (Betty) was leading a six piece orchestra at the Summer Hill Picture Theatre (in the era of silent movies).

Reginald Charles Grouse enlisted in the 36th Battalion, 9th Infantry Brigade, A.I.F. on the 25th of March 1916. His term of service was to be “the war and four months”. On his enlistment papers he is described as 26 years and three months old, five foot eight inches tall, 126 pounds, with a fresh complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair. He embarked for England on the “Port Sydney” on the 4th of September, 1916, with the Battalion’s 2nd reinforcements, and disembarked at Plymouth on the 29th October 1916. He spent two weeks in hospital on the ship (October 13-26). He trained in England at Lark Hill and Durrington on Salisbury Plains, enduring the coldest English winter since 1881 (they recorded only 16 hours sunshine in two months, with temperatures consistently below zero) – In one of his letters he describes some of the training:

“We raided a trench on Friday night. It was very realistic. Rockets, lights, mines, bombs and bullets, brought to a dramatic conclusion by a charge with bayonets. It was bitterly cold and the ground was very muddy so you can imagine how we looked when we finished after crawling around on our tummies for a couple of hours”.

He attended the Infantry Officers’ Course at Tidworth from January 8 to February 14 and passed with an average of 75.4%. He was promoted to Corporal and then to Acting Sergeant. On the 14th March 1917 he proceeded overseas from Folkestone to Boulogne, then to Etaples, France and on the 18th March, marched out to join his unit, and was taken on strength of Battalion, reverting to Private, at Armentieres near the Belgian border. On March 25 he reverted to his substantial rank of Corporal. On the 25th March, 36th Battalion relieved 34th Battalion at Houplines. They were in turn relieved by 34th Battalion on April 2, returning to billets in Armentieres. The weather was generally bitterly cold and snowing. On April 10, the Battalion marched to Steenwerck, where they entrained for St Omer, then marched to Wizernes and on to Journy, the 2nd Army Training Area. They trained at Journy from the 12th to the 24th then marched to Arques and back to Erquinghem for a two day rest before taking over the trenches at Le Touquet from the Cheshire Regiment on the 29th. They were under heavy bombardment on the 30th. Relieved on May 4, they went into billets in Le Bizet (Belgium) , then to Ploegsteert on May 8 and Messines on May 10. They returned to France and took over the Le Touquet sector again on May 20. Relieved on the 24th, they went into billets in Nieppe. On the 25th they marched into Belgium and into billets at Ploegstreert Wood. After severe shelling the Battalion returned to Nieppe on June 2. On June 6, they marched back to Ploegstreert Wood in preparation for the Battle of Messines, but met with heavy gas shelling, which did not disperse in the wood, and suffered heavy casualties.

Lt William Palstra from Melbourne wrote that, after the gas shelling began:

“we had to wear box respirators and the rest of the march was one long drawn out hell. The night was fairly dark, one’s gas mask glasses were continually becoming fogged with perspiration, one tripped over obstacles- barbed wire and groaning men.”

The Battalion moved into position at Prowse Point and St Yves on the night of June 6. The operation report states that;

“D Company was on the left, at Prowse Point, in a deep, fairly safe piece of trench off Ontario Ave and adjacent to R.E. Dump.”

On June 7, Reg was to witness the greatest explosion ever seen- excluding nuclear weapons it is still the greatest explosion of all time- it was felt in London as an earthquake. For two years the allies had been tunneling under the German lines and planning this assault. 21 tunnels led to chambers as deep as 30 metres beneath the German positions. Explosive was taken in in backpacks weighing some 50 pounds (22 kilograms) until one million pounds of explosive had been placed in the chambers. (Graphic accounts of the tunnelers and the Battle of Messines can be found in Sebastien Faulks’ Birdsong and the Australian film Beneath Hill 60). At 3.10am on June 7, the Allied detonated 19 huge mines beneath the German lines, killing most of the German troops and demoralizing the rest.

The 36th Battalion was not included in the initial assault following the explosion of the mines, but on the evening of the 9th of June, 36th Battalion relieved 34th Battalion in the left sector with a frontage from the Douve River to Ash Avenue. The relief was completed at 2am on the 10th. At 3am on the 10th, two advance points were seized on Line O and Tilleui Farm, situated at the junction of Ulster Avenue with this line and no 2 post on Ulster Drive on the same line. D Company occupied the forward post on Ulster Drive. They were ordered to seize the enemy trenches at La Potterie Farm, attacking at 11 pm. At 4pm a German shell landed in the trench, severely wounding Corporal Grouse. He was attended by stretcher bearers, but died before he could be taken out. He was buried with four other men, in a shellhole behind the trench, prior to the attack.

In the Red Cross records there are 15 eye witness accounts of his death, including the following:

"He was killed at the Messines stunt on 10th June. He had his leg blown off by a shell and died two hours later. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when he was hit. I helped to bury him in the battlefield just behind the front line trench from which we were firing where he got hit. The most remarkable feature was that he and another man were back to back in the trench when it happened- Grouse was the one hit while the other man escaped without a scratch. I do not know the fortunate survivor." - Corporal Walter Matthews

Over the course of the action 36th Battalion losses were 70 killed, 323 wounded and 16 missing. In just three weeks, Battalion strength went from 923 men to 540.

In 2009, we (Tony and Sue Walker) travelled to Belgium to see the battlefields and to try to locate my grandfather’s resting place. With the help of a wonderful tour guide we acquired the map below and located the La Potterie Farm described in the despatches. From the information in the 36th Battalion War Diaries (item number 23/53/8) we are satisfied that the field photographed above was the location of the trench in which Reginald Grouse died. The cross on the map shows where we took the photo, looking towards La Potterie Farm.

Reg Grouse’s name appears on the Menin Gate in Ypres, which commemorates 54,000 soldiers who died on the Ypres Salient but have no known graves. It sits astride the road on which Reg would have marched on his way to the front and the last post has been played there at sundown every night for almost one hundred years. Despite serving as Acting or Temporary Sergeant for most of his time in France, his record on the Menin Gate lists him in his substantive rank of Corporal.

Elizabeth, his widow, was granted a pension of two pounds per fortnight, with a further one pound fifteen shillings for her children. My mother (Laurette) always said that her mother was so bitter about his death that she refused to accept the war widow’s pension. I am not sure whether this is true. Certainly her role as one of the few (only?) female orchestra leaders in Sydney’s cinemas had put her in a good financial position, owning her home at “Lyric” 1 Euston Road, Hurlstone Park, and a pair of conjoined cottages at Campsie, which she rented out.

The army returned Reg’s effects which were: “disc, fountain pen, unit colours, lucky charm, cards, photos, mark note, pocket book, stud, silver watch (damaged) and strap.” The watch still carried the mud of the battlefield. We still have most of these items. She also received a memorial plaque and scroll and the Victory Medal.
As is common in war, the casualties are not confined to the battlefield- after a time working as accompanist to Senor D’Alba, one of Sydney’s leading singing teachers (where the hours were more congenial for a single mother) she suffered what was then known as a “nervous breakdown” and the children went to live with their maternal grandmother Mary Mellor while she recovered. On her recovery she continued to work at cinemas- first the Cremorne Orpheum and later the Dulwich Hill Brittania, until the advent of sound ended the careers of cinema musicians. She was kept on at the Britannia monitoring sound at a reduced salary and worked there until about 1937. She also taught piano to private students throughout this period and later.

Laurette married Clement Keith Walker in September 1934- she was 19 and he was 22. After the birth of their first child (first living child, there had been two previous stillbirths, both boys) Anthony Charles, they moved in with Elizabeth at “Lyric” in Hurlstone Park, and lived there until her death in 1970. A second child, Susan Elisabeth was born in 1943. Despite smoking all her life and being fond of a drink (she liked a teaspoon of rum in her morning tea in the winter) Elizabeth (Betty) lived to 84 and was still active till the end, despite developing angina- on the day of her death she had walked to the train station gone to the city shopping then walked home. She never remarried.