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        • A bell from Simpson's donkey
        • AIF kit bag
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        • Albert Borella VC, Ronald Lister Collection, NT Library
        • Alexander Frederick Robertson's diary aboard the HMAS Warrego, June 1917 – December 1919
        • Archdeacon Thomas O'Donnell's grave
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        • Australian Red Ensign
        • Bell tent
        • Binoculars and female relative pin
        • Book of Gold, Warriors Chapel, Christ Church Cathedral
        • Box of letters to Caroline Pengilley and two photographic collections
        • Brass font ewer
        • CEW Bean, Pillars of Bathurst
        • Celtic cross memorial to Sergeant Mervyn Higgins, 8th Australian Light Horse
        • Charles Bean speech
        • Charles Brady’s ‘In Memoriam’ draft letter
        • 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
        • Grave of Padre White and the collections of several museums
        • 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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Desailly Rotunda and Carnegie Library

Mildura Historical Society Carnegie Centre
74 Deakin Ave
Mildura VIC, 3500

Directly opposite the Carnegie Library in Deakin Avenue, the George Desailly Memorial rotunda was the rallying point for the Mildura community during the Great War. Concerts, recruiting rallies, fundraising events, farewells and welcomes for returning servicemen were regular events.

When word of the Armistice reached Mildura at 9.30 pm on 11 November 1918, the news spread quickly. Three bandsmen from the Mildura District Band immediately commenced playing and were soon joined by other musicians and the townspeople. Revelry continued well into the next day, but the celebrations were bittersweet.

More than 1240 Mildura men had enlisted. They were among the first to die in action in the Great War. At Koorlong, just outside Mildura, the Adams family lost two sons when they landed with the 8th Battalion at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The elder brother, Frederick, was killed that day and his eighteen-year-old sibling Edgar disappeared. In November 1915, a bottle washed up at Alexandria in Egypt containing a message from Edgar, saying he had been taken prisoner. Enquiries failed to locate him and it was eventually concluded that he ‘died in enemy hands on or about 25/4/1915’.

After the Armistice some Australians saw further action with the North Russia Relief Force, including Samuel Pearse, a young neighbour of the Adams family. Daring by nature, at the age of eleven Samuel had saved a girl from a bolting horse. He enlisted before his eighteenth birthday, serving briefly at Gallipoli before going to the Western Front with the 2nd Australian Machine Gun Company. In September 1917 at Glencourse Woods near Ypres, he singlehandedly bombed an enemy post with ‘utter disregard’ for his own safety and was awarded the Military Medal.

After his discharge from the AIF in 1919, he married and enlisted as a Sergeant with the 45th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. On 29 August 1919, while under heavy machine-gun fire at Emptsa, near Archangel in North Russia, he cut through barbed-wire defences to attack a blockhouse with hand grenades, killing the occupants before being shot by a Russian machine gun. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

Samuel’s widow and daughter settled in Australia in 1920, and in 1922 the Carnegie Library, with the addition of a memorial clock tower and a roll of honour, became a place of reverence. A framed photograph of Sergeant Samuel Pearse took pride of place in the library.

The bandstand was the scene of recruiting rallies, concerts, farewells and welcomes and the initial celebrations when news of the Armistice reached Mildura in November 1918
The Carnegie Library, Mildura's memorial to war dead. Towering above building is the clock tower. Two honour roll panels flank the entrance.
The former library is now known as the Carnegie Centre and is home to the local historical and genealogical societies.
The first panel of the honour roll.
Portrait of Private Edgar Robert Colebeck Adams
portrait of Private Frederick James Adams, 8th Battalion.
Portrait of Sergeant Samuel George Pearse.
The original grave of Samuel Pearse.

References

  • ‘How the News was received in Mildura’, Mildura Cultivator, 13 November 1918
  • ‘Sunraysia lost many in World War I’, Sunrasysia Daily (Supplement), October 1999
  • Service Record for Private Edgar Robert Colbeck Adams, No. 1127
  • Service Record for Private Frederick James Adams, No. 868
  • Lone Pine Cemetery
  • Honours and Awards – Samuel Pearse
  • Red Cross Wounded and Missing – Samuel George Pearse
  • Australian Dictionary of Biography: Pearse, Samuel George (1897–1919)
  • 'Sergeant SG Pearse, VC: Memorial Photo Unveiled’, Mildura Cultivator, 13 March 1920
  • ‘Still Making History at 100’

Further information

Mildura Historical Society
Carnegie Centre
74 Deakin Avenue
Mildura VIC 3500

PO Box 2957
Mildura VIC 3500

Phone: 03 5021 3090
Email mildurahistorical@gmail.com
Website: Mildura Historical Society

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