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For 75 years the grave of Private Henry Westerway 4921, an indigenous soldier in the Battle of Fromelles, lay unmarked with no visitors at Macquarie Park Cemetery in Sydney until his grandson Warren Smith sought out answers about the grandfather he never met.

Pte Henry Westerway is one of just over 1000 Aboriginal soldiers in WWI and one of only 470 Prisoners Of War in the Battle of Fromelles. He has the unique combination that as an indigenous soldier he married an English bride, returned to Australia and was fortunate enough to obtain a war service home.

Henry Westerway worked as a Tin Miner beside his father in humble surroundings on the outskirts of Tingha in the Northern Tablelands of NSW and enlisted for WWI at Armidale on 17th September 1915 at age 30. Five months later the troop ship HMAT Star of England took him to war landing in Ferry Post on the Suez Canal in Egypt to join the 55th Battalion B Company then transferred to Marseilles, France and eventually on to joining the frontline trenches of the Western Front as an inexperienced soldier on 12th July 1916.

A week later Henry was in his first major encounter – The Battle of Fromelles in France. Henry was affected by at least two mustard gas clouds which were to affect his health for the remainder of his life. On 15th July the Canadians launched a gas attack however the wind direction changed unexpectedly blowing the poisonous vapours over the section held by the 55th then on 17th July the 61st Division discharged gas floating over the Sugarloaf salient but drifted back into the allies lines causing casualties to the incoming 60th Brigade of which Henry was dug in slightly to the east.

The next day on the 20th July 1916 he was part of the third wave of attack pushing across no man’s land on the left side of the Sugarloaf Salient making it 200 yards inside German ground but was then surrounded and captured. Initially he was reported missing but later confirmed as a prisoner of war firstly at Gefangenenlager Dulmen then precisely 12 months after he enlisted was transferred for internment at Munster, Westphalia in Germany where he suffered due to his dangerously ill condition until the end of the war.

Pte Westerway was a POW from 20th July 1916 until 4th December 1918.

In Henry’s words from his speech at his Welcome Home ceremony in Tingha on Monday 20th October 1919 his actions are reported “It was the energy and push of the Australians that had been the cause of his becoming a prisoner for they had pushed forward too far and some of them were surrounded and captured”

A sad part of his story is that it took 10 months for his father to be notified his son Henry was a prisoner that was dangerously ill due to a spelling error in the address on an envelope putting Tingra rather than Tingha.

At the conclusion of the war Henry was transported to Ripon Military Camp Hospital in England on 6th December 1918 and listed as “Dangerously ill with a bad case of Lobar Pneumonia having been gassed in 1916” and nearly died. After one month he suffered Influenza and was moved to King George Military Hospital in Weymouth on 8th January 1919. He then took repeated leave from 14th January through to 8th March and whilst on leave met and within weeks married his English bride Emily May Riley on 10th February 1919 in his brides’ local church in Leyton, UK. Henry wasn’t going to waste any more time.

He then returned to Australia on the troop ship S.S. Indarra with his new wife Emily May leaving Tilbury Dock at 6:00am on 12th July 1919 bound for the “sunny land” arriving nearly two months later to start a new life in Sydney, Australia leaving his old past behind.

Pte Henry Westerway obtained a new two bedroom war service home in Willoughby which in those days was in the bush on the outer reaches of Sydney and he named it Leyton in memory of the place he married, the hometown of his wife and the start of his new future.

The scars of Henry being a prisoner of war and coming from an Aboriginal background saw him surrender his only daughter, then aged 14, to someone else to look after when his wife died. His daughter Stella as a young child did not comprehend Henry’s past and then at 20 years of age saw her 55 year old father Henry buried in the same grave as her mother Emily. His daughter suffered gravely from her upbringing.

75 years later on Anzac Day 2015 Henry’s grandson Warren Smith, who knew nothing about his family or his roots, discovered the unmarked grave and coordinated the Office of Australian War Graves to permanently acknowledge Henry’s resting place for future generations to recognise his service to our country.

On the headstone plaque it reads “Taken POW Battle of Fromelles. Returned to our sunny land with his new bride May” with the reference to “sunny land” extracted from a memento letter he wrote on leaving England bound for Australia. Exactly 100 years after Pte Henry Westerway was taken prisoner a family grave side memorial service honoured the grandfather that the family never knew and helped author this story so as Australians we never forget the effort indigenous soldiers made in WWI.