Thalby Brixton REIDY CROFTS

Thalby Brixton REIDY CROFTS Update Details

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REIDY CROFTS, Thalby Brixton

Service Numbers:	W29814, WX34855
Enlisted:	30 July 1940
Last Rank:	Lieutenant
Last Unit:	Not yet discovered
Born:	Brixton, Wiltshire, England, 1 June 1918
Home Town:	Boulder, Kalgoorlie/Boulder, Western Australia
Schooling:	Eastern Goldfields High School, Western Australia
Occupation:	Motor Mechanic
Died:	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 May 1997, aged 78 years, cause of death not yet discovered
Cemetery:	Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Melbourne Cremation
Memorials:

World War 2 Service

30 Jul 1940:	Enlisted W29814
22 Jul 1942:	Enlisted Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Lieutenant, WX34855
8 Mar 1946:	Discharged Australian Military Forces (WW2) , Lieutenant, WX34855
Date unknown:	Discharged W29814

Help us honour Thalby Brixton Reidy Crofts's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Chris Buckley

Lieutenant Thalby Brixton Reidy-Crofts (Service No:WX34855) initially served in the Militia (Sergeant; Service No:247596) with 28th Battalion for four years before enlisting in the ACMF on 30 July 1940 as a WOI (Service No:W29814) attached to Western Command Training School. WOI Crofts was attached to LHQ School of Mechanisation Seymour Vic when he enlisted in the AIF on 22 July 1942 and was commissioned on 22 September 1942. Lieutenant Crofts served with LHQ School of Mechanisation (Instructor) and was detached to 2/9 and 2/8 Australian Armoured Regiments during 1944. Lieutenant Crofts was attached to LHQ School of Mechanisation at Discharge on 8 March 1946.

Thalby (aka Brixton) was born in Brixton, England in 1918, eldest of two children of Sydney Charles Herbert Crofts (b1896 in Fremantle, WA) and Ellen (Nellie) May Whatley (b1898 in Hampshire, England). Sydney was a Corporal in the AIF (Service No:260) convalescing in England in 1918 when he and Nellie married. Nellie arrived in Fremantle WA with Brixton in 1919 on board the Benalla. Sydney and Nellie lived in Brookton, Narrogin, Perth, Fremantle and Northam where Sydney worked with the WAGR as a Porter, Shunter and Guard. Nellie contracted TB and was admitted to the Wooroloo Sanitarium, where she died in 1926. Sydney moved to Kalgoorlie with his two children and worked as a Mechanic. In 1932 he remarried, and later moved to Perth.

Thalby worked as a Pipe Fitter and Motor Mechanic in Boulder before enlisting in the Army. In 1939 in Boulder he married Dorothy Florence May Reid (b1918 in Boulder, WA). Following their Divorce in June 1946, Thalby remarried that year in Geelong, Victoria to Rhona Isabel Cook (b1918 in Ballarat, Victoria). Thalby and Rhona settled in Melbourne, where Thalby worked as an Engineer with the Daimler Coy. Thalby and Rhona Divorced and in 1959 Thalby married his third wife, Joan Borlase Faull (b1925 in Penzance, Cornwall) - Thalby and Joan had met in London, and Joan arrived in Australia in January 1959. Thalby and Joan settled in Melbourne where Thalby was a Manager. Following Thalby's death in 1997, Joan returned to England where she died in 2015.

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