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        • Alexander Frederick Robertson's diary aboard the HMAS Warrego, June 1917 – December 1919
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        • Brass font ewer
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        • Charles Bean speech
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        • Coalfields Museum's wall of former Avenue of Honour plaques and Collie's Soldiers Park
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        • Colour patch pin
        • Commemorative photo frame
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        • Deserted village with a WWI history
        • Drum Major's staff
        • Elsie Godden's Celebration of Peace certificate
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        • First World War Memorial
        • Framed memento of the Berrima Guard
        • Gold medallion
        • Grave of Lieutenant Commander Geoffrey Haggard DSC
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        • Hahndorf minenwerfer
        • Henty School of Arts Hall
        • Identity discs
        • Jack Archer's furniture and tools
        • Jessie Bonnett's Scrapbook, 1914–1918
        • Kangaroo March slouch hat badge
        • King George Sound
        • Legge's House
        • Letter concerning Private 'Rowdy' Butler's death
        • Letter from Egypt
        • Lieutenant Matthews' uniform
        • Light Horse Park & Light Horse watering troughs
        • Mead Photographic Honour Roll
        • Memorial Plaque for Frederick Arthur Foster
        • Memorial pavilion
        • Military Heritage Trail
        • Milton Street Church of England Record Book
        • Mouquet Farm (now Sunflowers Animal Farm)
        • Mrs Dalrymple's Dance Music Album
        • Murray VC statue
        • One name on a memorial at Byaduk, Victoria
        • Order of Service for the unveiling of a war memorial
        • Ore Carriage Memorial and Alma Cowie's grave
        • Pearling, the Japanese and the Great War in Broome, reflected in two important historical collections
        • Peterborough 'Loco' Honour Roll
        • Plaque on the Memorial Hall at Hopetoun
        • Point Nepean Gun Battery and the 'first shot'
        • Portland's Anzac Day crosses
        • Postcard from a brother to a sister
        • Private Gilbert Hoskins' Gallipoli sketches
        • Queensland Patriotic Fund letter
        • Records of the Yass Boys' Comfort Fund 1915–1919
        • Red felt hat
        • Silk postcard collection
        • Sister Eva Robinson exhibition
        • Sister Olivia Lowrey's clock
        • Souvenir of Egypt
        • St John's battlefield windows
        • St Martin's War Memorial Hospital, 373 Anne Street
        • St Mary's Church and Busselton Memorial Obelisk
        • St Peter's Church
        • Stirling East School Honour Roll
        • Submarines in the park
        • The Mothers of Soldiers in Yacka
        • The Tomb of General Bridges
        • The Wreck of the hospital ship SS Maheno
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        • Turriff War Memorial
        • Tyrendarra Soldiers War Memorial Hall
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Colour patch pin

JC Hubinger Museum
51 Victoria Street
Cardwell QLD, 4849

This colour patch pin of the 11th Light Horse Regiment is a memento of the service of local man Henry ‘Harry’ Charles Curtis. The pins are frequently referred to as ‘sweetheart’ brooches. However, that name is misleading as the brooches were also given to female relatives and friends. In some cases they may have been purchased by a loved one as a symbol of affection and support for a soldier on active service. Unlike British regiments that had their own regimental badges, the units of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) had colour patches.

Surveyor Harry Curtis was among the first to enlist from Cardwell. The diary of local woman May Butler records that twenty-three people attended his farewell at the Murray Upper School before he departed by steamer. He enlisted in Townsville on 2 January 1915 with his father’s consent. During his training at Enoggera, Queensland, he sent postcards to his friend Hugh ‘Rowdy’ Butler, who would later enlist.

The 11th Light Horse embarked on the Medic on 2 June 1915, trained in Egypt, and was then deployed to Gallipoli until the evacuation of 19–20 December. The unit returned to Egypt and was involved in a number of actions over the next three years, including the Suez Canal, the Sinai Desert, Gaza, Beersheba, Damascus and Palestine. Harry’s service was interrupted by periods of hospitalisation and, though promoted to the rank of lance corporal, at his own request he reverted to the rank of trooper. He was discharged as medically unfit from the AIF in July 1919.

Twenty-eight men and women from the Cardwell area enlisted and are named on the roll of honour now housed in the local museum, where visitors are able to read individual stories on an interactive honour roll. At the outbreak of war the nearby township of Tully did not exist, but during its development in the 1920s the first streets were named after servicemen and servicewomen of the Cardwell Shire. Curtis Street is named after Trooper Harry Curtis and nearby Butler Street after his mate Rowdy Butler who was killed near Flers, France, in November 1916.

A gold brooch with an engraved design of a horse and rifles above the green-over-blue colour patch of the 11th Light Horse Regiment.
Portrait of Trooper Henry ‘Harry’ Charles Curtis before his embarkation for active service in 1915.
Portrait of Trooper Henry ‘Harry’ Charles Curtis.
A postcard entitled ‘Australian troops in trenches’ from Harry Curtis to his mate Hugh ‘Rowdy’ Butler is possibly an image taken while troops were training. The card was sent from Enoggera Camp, Queensland.
Back of postcard: Harry’s message infers that Rowdy had not written for so long that he thought he had ‘thrown a seven’, a popular term in the AIF implying someone had died. He wrote ‘not all fun down here we are worked off our legs with the horses'.
Postcard of the horse lines at a light horse camp, most likely near Enoggera, Queensland, showing the bell tents where men were accommodated while training.
The postcard from Egypt dated 22 August 1915 reads in part ‘I will be belt deep in it by the time this reaches you, if a Turk does not do for me ... So Goodbye, this might be the last you will receive from me’.

References

  • Service record of Henry Charles Curtis, 122
  • Tully street names: signs of history, Helen Pedley, Tully, 2010.
  • Cardwell Roll of Honour 1914–1918

Further information

Cardwell & District Historical Society Inc

51 Victoria Street
Cardwell QLD 4849

Phone: 07 4077 4270

Website: Cardwell & District Historical Society Inc/

Email: info@cardwellhistory.com.au

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