Joseph Robert MCHUGH

MCHUGH, Joseph Robert

Service Number: 2209
Enlisted: 28 February 1916
Last Rank: Private
Last Unit: 49th Infantry Battalion
Born: Eagle Farm, Queensland, Australia, date not yet discovered
Home Town: Wondai, South Burnett, Queensland
Schooling: South Brisbane State School, Queensland, Australia
Occupation: Electrician, Telegraph Technician
Died: Illness, Flers, France, 20 February 1917, age not yet discovered
Cemetery: Quarry Cemetery, Montauban
Memorials: Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Wondai Shire Honour Roll WW1
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World War 1 Service

28 Feb 1916: Enlisted AIF WW1, Private, 2209, 49th Infantry Battalion
16 Aug 1916: Involvement Private, 2209, 49th Infantry Battalion, --- :embarkation_roll: roll_number: '19' embarkation_place: Brisbane embarkation_ship: HMAT Boorara embarkation_ship_number: A42 public_note: ''
16 Aug 1916: Embarked Private, 2209, 49th Infantry Battalion, HMAT Boorara, Brisbane

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Biography contributed by Ian Lang

# 2209 McHUGH Joseph Robert        49th Battalion
 
Joseph McHugh was born at Eagle Farm but spent most of his young life in the South Brisbane area where he attended school. He worked as a telegraph technician for the Postmaster General’s Department and it likely that this work took him to various locations in South East Queensland.
 
Joseph enlisted in Brisbane on 28th February 1916. He stated his age as 37 but he may have been much older. Joseph stated his occupation as electrician. He was married to Mary Ellen McHugh but according to a letter written by his mother, Joseph and Mary Ellen were estranged and did not live together. Nevertheless, Robert named Mary Ellen of Warwick as his next of kin. Joseph had a son, Mervyn, who lived with his mother. Joseph lived with his mother, Ann McHugh, in South Brisbane. The appearance of Joseph’s name on the Wondai War Memorial suggests that he worked at some time in the district and was well known there.
 
After spending some time in a depot battalion at Enoggera, Joseph was drafted into the 4th reinforcements for the 49th Battalion. The reinforcements boarded the “Boorara” in Brisbane on 6th August and after sailing via Durban, Capetown and Sierra Leone, disembarked at Plymouth on 13th October. After two months in the 4th Training Battalion at Perham Downs, the reinforcements crossed the English Channel to the transit base at Etaples and finally marched in to the 49th Battalion lines on 21st December.
 
The 4th Division of the AIF, of which the 49th was part, had endured a rough time on the Somme at Pozieres and Mouquet Farm in the latter half of 1916. With the coming of winter, the Somme battle front was virtually closed down and battalions took time to rest, take on reinforcements and prepare for a resumption of hostilities in the spring of 1917. When Joseph joined the 49th Battalion, it was billeted in the Bendigo Camp near Flers. The official record contains no information as to the circumstances of Joseph’s death two months after joining the battalion, save for the notation “died of natural causes”.
 
The Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Service, probably at the urging of Joseph’s mother, interviewed a number of men who offered a more detailed account. Joseph was, according to several men who knew him, an alcoholic. One account referred to him as a confirmed drunkard. Joseph had been appointed as a steward in the battalion’s sergeant’s mess where he cooked and waited on tables. On 20thFebruary 1917, after a celebration in the mess which lasted until 11pm, Joseph left the mess, somewhat the worse for drink. He was found face down in a puddle near the mess the next morning, dead.
 
An inquiry and an autopsy determined that Joseph had probably died as the result of a heart attack. Such a verdict perhaps was arrived at so as to cause minimum grief to his family and to ensure that his widow, the estranged Mary Ellen and son Mervyn, would be entitled to a war pension. Comments made to the Red Cross by a number of men interviewed suggest that at the time Joseph was fall down drunk and having fallen was unable to get up. There were no eye witnesses to the incident and apart from the autopsy, all evidence was just conjecture. The Commonwealth War Graves website lists Joseph’s true age at his death as 42.
 
Joseph’s will was clear that all of his estate, mainly money, was to go to his son Mervyn. It is unlikely that Mervyn was old enough to inherit and the money was probably held in trust by the Public Trustee in Brisbane. Ann McHugh in a letter written after her son’s death stated that Joseph was adamant that his wife should not benefit from his war service. Nevertheless, as his designated next of kin, Mary Ellen, who had moved to Toowoomba, was granted a war pension of two pounds per fortnight. She also received Joseph’s medals and memorial scroll.
 
The Imperial War Graves Commission lists Joseph’s burial at Quarry Cemetery, Montauban. The grave registration names Joseph’s parents and his wife, incorrectly stating her address as Bronte, Tasmania. She was in fact living at “Pasifique” Bronte in Sydney’s beach suburbs.

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