War Memorial Hall c1929
Richmond Boyd GRAHAM
Richmond ‘Rex’ Graham was born on 16 July 1895 in Perth, Western Australia. His parents were James Sidney Boyd and Harriet Sarah (née Chadwick) Graham. He attended Scotch from 1910 to 1912.
Rex was a law clerk when he enlisted on 27 January 1916 in Melbourne, Victoria. He served in the 29th Battalion with the rank of Private. His Regimental Number was 2647.
Rex died on 26 September 1917 at Polygon Wood, Belgium. He was 22 years of age.
Service record
Rex was just 5 feet 4 ½ inches (164 cm) tall. After being sent to a Depot Battalion at Geelong, in March 1916 he joined the 5th Reinforcements to the 29th Battalion at Broadmeadows. This group left Melbourne on 14 March 1916. They arrived at Suez on 15 April. In early May he was admitted to hospital, for 20 days. In June he was sick again, with influenza, and did not return to his unit for three weeks. He spent most of August 1916 travelling to England, and then in late September reached France and was taken on strength of the 29th Battalion.
Two weeks later he was detached for traffic duties with the 5th Division, of which 29th Battalion was part. His run of bad luck continued in March 1917, when he was admitted to hospital with a scalded right foot. Two weeks later he returned to the 29th Battalion, but at the end of April was sick again, with scabies. This kept him out for another nine days. He was sent on leave for two weeks on 31 August. Within days of returning, he was detached to the 25th Machine Gun Company.
A week later, on the night of 26-27 September, he was killed in action. A lieutenant in the Machine Gun Company reported that Rex ‘was killed by shell-fire in his gun position on the 26th September 1917, death being instantaneous.’ Eyewitnesses later recalled seeing the dead body lying unburied, but it clearly was buried afterwards (see below).
Before enlisting Rex had worked as a clerk in a legal firm, Messrs Kaufman and Snowball, Solicitors. Mr O. Snowball, MLA, wrote to Rex’s father: ‘The news of your son Rex’s death cast a sorrowful pall over the office, and in all our building. He was a great favourite with all of us and the clients, and was often inquired after by clients and others. He was a genuine, earnest, good-living, cheery lad.’
Rex Graham is buried in the Hooge Crater Cemetery (Plot XI, row K, Grave No. 15), Zillebeke, Belgium.
Photographs and Documents:
Rex Graham’s slight stature and potential frailty are apparent in this photograph taken at Broadmeadows camp in March 1916.
This eyewitness’s sad testimony remembers Rex as ‘well-educated’, with a ‘College education’.
A sergeant recalls the circumstances of Rex’s death and the fact that for a time his body was left where it lay.
Rex Graham’s makeshift grave, close to the Menin Road at Polygon Wood, is at the left here, alongside that of another 22-year-old soldier who had been killed after being detached to the 25th Machine Gun Company. The remains of both men were later exhumed and reinterred at Hooge Crater Cemetery, Belgium.
Sources:
- Australian War Memorial – Roll of Honour and Red Cross Wounded and Missing file
- Mishura Scotch Database
- National Archives of Australia – B2455, GRAHAM R B
- Scotch Collegian 1917
- The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=116246
