Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Stoker Donald Kerr Macfarlane (Service No:5909) initially served with the Naval Volunteers as a Cadet, and with the RAN as a Stoker (Service No:451) attached to HMS Mildura from 1904. Stoker Macfarlane served in WWI on HMAS Cerberus and Brisbane from 28 October 1916 to 18 July 1919.

Donald was born in Brisbane QLD in 1885, third of thirteen children of John Kerr Macfarlane (b1852 in Dunbartonshire, Scotland) and Christina Smellie Young (b1953 in Lanarkshire, Scotland). John (a Shipwright) and Christina (a Dressmaker) married in 1881 in Lancashire, England and arrived in Brisbane in 1884 - John as a Shipwright on board the Mt Lebanon, and Christina with two children on board the Duke of Argyll. The couple settled in Brisbane, where they raised their family. In 1895 John was appointed Caretaker at the Brisbane Amateur Sailing Club, and was known as a 'boat builder, ship's carpenter, and generally handy man around boats' (Trove; 1895). In the 1890s John was a Gas Rates Collector, Insurance Agent, and ferry lease-holder (Bulimba Steam Ferry and Hamilton Apollo Ferry), and he and Christina ran Macfarlane's Refreshment Kiosk at the boat repair yard by the Brisbane River. By the 1900s John was a Boat Builder.

Donald served in the Naval Cadets and then the RAN. In 1918 in Brisbane he married Jane (Ellen) Nellie Ward (b1890 in Brisbane, QLD), and following his Discharge from the RAN, he and Ellen settled in Brisbane where they raised their family and Donald worked as a Storeman until his death in 1921 - Donald was member of Royal Standard Lodge No 42.