Commemorative Roll, AWM Canberra

Last week I was privileged to stand in my mother's place as her cousin Pip was remembered at the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra.

The occasion was a talk given on 16 January 2020, explaining the existence and meaning of the AWM's Commemorative Roll. Like the Honour Roll, it acknowledges the lives lost in war in the service of one's country, but those on the Commemorative Roll were Australians serving in an Allied force and not the Australian armed forces.

Elise Horspool & Louise Wilson, AWM Canberra, Jan 2020

Philip Hugh Boulton (Pip) was among the eight or nine people whose stories were briefly told by Elise Horspool, an Assistant Curator at the AWM. An Australian, he happened to be in England when WW2 broke out and thus he served as a pilot in the RAF rather than the RAAF.  He was killed on 29 May 1941 when a plane in which he was a passenger crashed into the Dorset hills after an air-sea firing exercise.

P H Boulton, Sussex, 1939
Photo by Courtesy Julia Woodhouse

It seems that his name was submitted for inclusion on the Commemorative Roll several years ago by an internal staff member of the AWM. Once the relevant AWM staff had confirmed all the details, Pip's name was added to the Commemorative Roll database in September 2019, 78 years after his death! The reference number is www.awm.gov.au/collection/R2682025. His is not a unique case. Names from past wars continue to be added to the Commemorative Roll, as researchers come across the stories of relevant candidates.  Nominations from the public are also considered by AWM staff.

It was not until late November 2019 that the family first became aware of this amazingly-belated recognition of Pip's service, or even knew that he was eligible for it. Elise Horspool sent a message and then a follow-up message:

Pip represents a large cross section of Australian society at the time: a family with generational service and an Australian who died serving in the Royal Air Force/Volunteer Reserve. Along with Pip, I have chosen an Australian Philippine Army guerrilla, an Australian Commando serving with the British, an Australian Merchant Marine who survived the sinking of two of his ships (but not the third), an Australian Engineer who served with the Federated Malay States Volunteer Force and worked on the Thai-Burma Railway, two British brothers who made Australia their home but heard the call to return to the British Army and an Australian Painter who'd migrated to New Zealand. These stories represent different facets of our history and society over different wars and services. However, they all have the same thing in common, they were Australian but served with other Allied forces. I think their stories are extraordinary and they are equal to those on the Roll of Honour. 

The Commemorative Roll is tucked away up a short flight of stairs at the end of the Reflective Pool, on the right hand side as you enter the pool area.

Commemorative Roll Alcove, AWM Canberra

If you wish to view the roll you need to ask an attendant at the main desk to unlock it. I did this but the name I sought was not on the page.  Having only recently been identified as eligible, Philip Hugh Boulton (Pip)  will be included when the Roll is reprinted shortly.

Commemorative Roll Display Cabinet, AWM Canberra

Afterwards I bowed my head before his uncle Steve's name (S P Boulton) on the Honour Roll for those serving in the 2nd Brigade of Australia's First Division in WW1. His name was so crowded with poppies that it is almost obscured.

Honour Roll, Panel 11, AWM Canberra

Read more about Pip here and here. Read more abut Pip's father and Uncle Steve in WW1 in their letters, published as Brothers in Arms: the Great War Letters of Captain Nigel Boulton, R.A.M.C. & Lieut Stephen Boulton, A.I.F.   The AWM Bookshop still has two copies.

Should you ever wish to consult them, the original letters are held in Canberra within the AWM's Collection, Nigel's at https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C92249 and Stephen's at https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C92250

Gladesville Boys in WW1

Next week, on 16 January 2020, a public talk will be given in the Commemorative Area of the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra. It will feature the stories of a representative group of Australians who died in WW2 while serving with other Allied forces. The names of these people are included on the AWM's Commemorative Roll, holding equal significance to the AWM's Honour Roll (for those serving with Australian military forces). The talk on 16 January will include the story of Philip Hugh (Pip) Boulton, the son of Dr Nigel Boulton, a long-time resident of Gladesville and Ryde.

Pip was chosen for inclusion in the talk as an example of the inter-generational service of fathers who served in WW1 and their sons in WW2.  Pip, as a baby, features strongly in the letters written by his father and uncle during WW1 and published in the book Brothers in Arms: the Great War Letters of Captain Nigel Boulton, R.A.M.C. & Lieut Stephen Boulton, A.I.F.  Like his father, Pip attended The Kings School at Parramatta and, like his father, he also happened to be in England when WW2 broke out. Unlike his father, Pip did not return home from WW2.

Dr Nigel Boulotn, Pip and his mother Mona, England, mid 1918
from Julia Woodhouse Collection

In the generation before Pip, a number of other young men from Gladesville also did not survive their service. Altogether five sets of brothers from Gladesville who fought in WW1 make an appearance in the Boulton book. A century later, their names provide an interesting record of a friendship group, almost a social class, within the larger number of men from Gladesville whose service in WW1 is recorded by the Australian War Memorial.

The two Boulton brothers lived prior to WW1 at 'Bi-frons', Coulter St, Gladesville, a three-generation household containing their sister, their widowed mother, her sister (Aunt Mog) and their Flockton grandmother. Frank Bryant, a banker and close family friend who kept an eye on the welfare of the Boultons, was the nephew of Australia's first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton. The Barton family will reappear twice more in this story but no direct connection has been identified between them.

'Bi-frons', Coulter St, Gladesville c 1910
from Julia Woodhouse Collection

During the war their womenfolk lived at 'Coolah', on the corner of Ross Street and Western Crescent, Gladesville.

'Coolah', Western Crescent, Gladesville
from Julia Woodhouse Collection

Dr Nigel Boulton, c Dec 1913
from Julia Woodhouse Collection

Bank officer Stephen Boulton, c Dec 1914
from Julia Woodhouse Collection

Nigel Philip Boulton served as a doctor with the British Army and survived the war,  and Stephen Philip Boulton, Service Number 3872, was killed in France on 3 October 1918.

Stephen & Nigel Boulton, England, Sep 1917
by courtesy Sarah Dennis

After the war Nigel was a doctor at 760 Victoria Rd, Ryde for several years and at 237 Blaxland Rd, Ryde for many years. His Aunt Mog (the scientific botanical artist Margaret Lilian Flockton) lived at Tulagi, 30 Kemp St, Tennyson from 1918 to her death in 1953.

Two Shelley brothers of "Glen Doone", Henley, William St, Gladesville (towards Huntleys Point and Hunters Hill) both survived the war. Eric Ralph Shelley, Service Number 3130, was a farmer and grazier before the war and was awarded the Military Cross in 1917. His brother Mac Robert Shelley, Service Number 3131, was a bank clerk.

Two Herring brothers had lived at Bracondale, Ashburn Place, Gladesville, close to the Boultons. Edward Edgar (Jack) Herring, Service Number 939, was a bank clerk like Stephen Boulton when he signed up on 27 August 1914. He died on 9 August 1915 and is buried at Gallipoli.

Edward Edgar (Jack) Herring
(Sydney Mail, 13 Sep 1915)

His older brother Sydney Charles Edgar Herring (Syd), a married man and estate agent of Gladesville, has no recorded Service Number because he was already an army captain  when he signed up on 9 October 1914. He had a distinguished military career.

Brigadier General Sydney Herring, London 1918
Australian War Memorial, in Public Domain

Two Barton brothers of "Nyrangie", Linsley St, Gladesville (not far from the Boulton residence) both died in the war. They were first cousins of Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson, in whose honour a harbourside park has been named because Banjo lived with his grandmother at 'Rockend', Gladesville for a lengthy period when he was a student.

Francis Maxwell Barton (Max or Mac) was a student but already an officer (2nd Lieut) when he signed up with Syd Herring on 9 October 1914, so he has no recorded Service Number. Max died in France on 11 August 1916, shortly after this photo was taken of him in March 1916 at Tel-el-kebir in Egypt.

13th Australian Infantry Battalion plays donkey polo, Max Barton in left foreground
Australian War Memorial, in public domain

Max is not picked up as a Gladesville 'boy' on the Australian War Memorial website when it sorts by place. However his younger brother is: Robert Anthony Barton (Tony), Service Number 4660, was a student when he enlisted on 16 August 1915 and he was killed on 9 June 1917 in Belgium. Max and Tony's letters were discovered in a suitcase by their niece Gay Shannon, who is now publishing them online in a blog and a Facebook page

Francis Maxwell (Max) Barton
by courtesy Gay Shannon

Robert Anthony (Tony) Barton
by courtesy Gay Shannon

Four Kirkwood brothers served and Stephen Boulton mentions 'one of the Kirkwood lads' at Pozières in August 1916. This was William Russell Barton Kirkwood, Service Number 907, a farm student when he enlisted, who was later killed in France on 3 May 1917. The Kirkwood brothers' home address was 'Speen', Wharf Road, Gladesville, around the corner from the Herring brothers. Phillip Barton Kirkwood, Service Number 604, a bank clerk when he enlisted, was killed at Gallipoli on 19 May 1915. Soon after Phillip's death two more Kirkwood brothers enlisted. Noel Edmund Barton Kirkwood, a doctor, enlisted as an officer on 27 May 1915 and survived the war. John Barton Kirkwood, Service Number 2619, an auctioneer, enlisted on 14 June 1915 and survived the war. Photos of all four brothers are on the Virtual War Memorial Australia website. The Barton appearing in all their names honoured their grandfather Russell Barton of 'Russell Lea', Five Dock, a separate Barton family to that of Max and Tony Barton.

From the adjoining suburb of Hunters Hill, the Boulton brothers refer in their letters to two others:

Walter Stirling Macansh, a stockman whose family lived at Brown Street, Hunters Hill. He was a first cousin of the eldest (half) sister of the Barton brothers. He signed up early, on 2 September 1914, his Service Number being 147 and he survived the war.

In a letter written from 'Somewhere in France' on 30 April 1916, Stephen Boulton mentions a Mr Budden: "An occasional lot of gift stuffs come along for the 1^st Brigade of Artly., which we being in the 1^st Brigade get a share of. We haven't had any since coming over to France but I suppose later some will come along. Mr. Budden of Hunter's Hill is Secretary I believe." His reference was to Henry Ebenezer Budden, an architect of 'Morillah', Hunters Hill, who volunteered in 1915 to act in a voluntary capacity as the Commissioner of Australia's 'Citizens War Chest Fund'. This was a charitable body aiding the troops in Egypt and Europe.

The Boulton brothers attended The Kings School at Parramatta in the early 1900s, and their letters also mention some names from their school days:

• Harry Lloyd
• Arthur Champion
• Harry Jacob
• R G Waddy
• Billy Metcalfe

One military researcher describes the Boulton book as among the best first-hand accounts in print. If you'd like to read more, it's available from BookPOD in Melbourne or internationally through major online booksellers.

Commonwealth Bank's WW1 Honour Rolls

Commonwealth Bank's 'missing'
WW1 Honour Rolls, Sydney

Commonwealth Bank honours its World War 1 dead - or does it?

Back in those distant 60s when I worked in the Commonwealth Bank's old head office building in Sydney, I entered my office each day through the Pitt St entrance. The WW1 Honour Rolls graced the lift foyer. Aged 20, it never occurred to me that any of the names listed there were relevant to my family.

Recently, when writing my book 'Brothers in Arms' I realised my error. Margaret Flockton's nephew Stephen Boulton worked for this bank before enlisting in January 1915. He survived Gallipoli, Pozieres & more but not the final, final push. His amazing letters have been honoured by the Australian War Memorial's digitisation project and his name should be on the CBA's Honour Rolls ... so I went looking for them.

Aghast, I discovered that the building has been sold, that the magnificent old banking chamber is now a shopping place and the Rolls are 'missing in action'.

An email to the Commonwealth Bank Archives Dept and several emails to Dexus Property Group revealed the Honour Rolls had been relocated to another spot within the building ... somewhere! The photograph on the left was sent to me, as proof.

BUT - although they are on the Official Register of War Memorials in NSW these Honour Rolls are clearly no longer easily accessible to the public. I've visited the building three times on various visits to Sydney (from Melbourne) and haven't been able to find them, nor can anyone at reception tell me where they are. By Remembrance Day in 2017, will these Rolls onc again be honoured in some way?

IMPORTANT UPDATE No 1

Honour Rolls, May 2017
Photo Courtesy Catherine McKellar, Dexus Group

Catherine McKellar, General Manager for the Dexus & CBus Property co-owners of 5 Martin Place, contacted me on 18 May 2017 to explain that the Honour Rolls, in their new position inside the original building, will soon be accessible to the public. She said:

We are pleased to confirm that these Honour Rolls are in place and have not been relocated as part of the Development of 5 Martin Place finished in 2015.

They are located at each side of the main entrance doors off Pitt Street (on the inside) and are in their original condition.

The tenancy is locked at the moment as our new tenant is starting their fitout.

The Honour Rolls have been and will be preserved into the future. SP Boulton is on the Honour Roll.

The area will be opened to the public once our retail tenant opens in early September.

Stephen Philip Boulton was my great-uncle.
Photo Courtesy Catherine McKellar, Dexus Group

Thank you, Catherine, for clarifying the matter, providing the photos and kindly offering to give me a tour of the old Commonwealth Bank building next time I'm in Sydney. 


IMPORTANT UPDATE No 2

I didn't think I needed to bother Catherine when I happened to be in Pitt Street, Sydney during office hours in June 2018. I called in to have a look at the final setting for the Honour Rolls.

I was not impressed. Where is the respect? Who will remember in 50 years that these Honour Rolls for former staff are here because this building once housed the head office of the Commonwealth Bank? These rolls would be better off in their original position, in the outside foyer of this building, where they can be viewed out of hours, including on Anzac Day. What do you think?

WW1 & WW2 Honour Rolls, A-K, looking out towards Pitt St

WW1 & WW2 Honour Rolls, L-Z, looking out towards Pitt St

So my question at the start of this post has been answered. Yes, the Commonwealth Bank's staff who served in the Great War (and the Second World War too) will continue to be honoured - in a way. But Remembrance Day does seem to have lost its meaning.

Stephen Boulton, Anzac Day 1917

With Anzac Day coming up tomorow, my thoughts turn to my great uncle Stephen Boulton as I wonder - how did he spend Anzac Day on the Western Front one hundred years ago?

Corporal S P Boulton, 21st FAB, Jan 1917

His letters reveal that 1917 was a roller-coaster ride for him, with a series of UPs and DOWNs. He went on ten days’ leave  to England around 5 January 1917 (UP) but, being a victim of that year's extreme cold winter in France, he was already incubating the mumps (DOWN). He'd only been back in France for a day when the symptoms emerged and he went straight into a hospital isolation ward in Boulogne and then into a convalescent camp. He didn’t leave there for the Base Camp at Etaples until 24 February, when he underwent the required 10 days of training exercises before sick soldiers could rejoin their units.

Coincidentally, the 24 February was the day his mates in the 1st Division took part in casualty-laden action at Bapaume. So his stay in the hospital, the convalescent camp and the Base Camp was a high point on his 1917 ride, as being sick allowed him to stay relatively warm and dry through the worst of the winter weather and to escape some of the front-line horrors (UP).

After Bapaume, the 1st Division was rested from front-line service, and the authorities found it more convenient to leave Steve in the Base Camp, suffering the endless training regimes desiged to keep soldiers busy as he waited to go up the line. For strategic reasons the Germans had retreated in the Spring of 1917 to their well-fortified Hindenberg line of defence, which the Allied forces now determined to break through, as they had at Pozières in 1916. A veteran of the latter battle, and watching the comings and goings in the Base Camp, Steve was obviously well aware of the intended action, because he referred in a letter to censorship restricting his ability to mention what was going on at this time.

It was not until 29 March that Steve rejoined his old artillery mates, now relocated from 21st Field Artillery Brigade to the 1st FAB as part of a major reorganisation of the Allied forces prior to the fighting season of 1917. They were camped in the Béhencourt rest area north east of Amiens. The Arras offensive was about to commence, a definite trough in Steve's ride through 1917 (DOWN).

On 6 April the 1st FAB (except for one unspecified section) moved out of Béhencourt to a staging camp en route and next day moved into its position south-east of Arras and north-east of Bapaume where the Australian 1st Division was holding a lengthy (13,000 yard) section of the front line, running almost parallel to the German front-line with only a kilometre of No-Man's-Land between them. A few miles to the north, Australia’s 4th Division faced the Germans at Bullecourt, a French village which had been incorporated into the Hindenberg line, just like Pozières had been in 1916. The British General, Gough, ordered a poorly-planned attack on Bullecourt on 10-11 April, a battle which failed dismally and was very costly for the Australians.

Aerial view of Bullecourt, before the 1917 battles,
showing zig-zag lines of German trenches and, in front,
dark grey lines of barbed wire rolls
Source AWM J00276

With Allied defence of this section of the front line so thin, the German infantry saw their opportunity to pounce without warning. On 15 April they broke through a section of the front line held by the Australian 1st Division, at Lagnicourt. The Artillery had no rifles of their own to defend themselves and, while surviving unit war diaries do not specifically mention the 1st Battery in which Steve served, they did report that four 18 pounders of the 4th Battery and one Howitzer of the 102nd Battery were totally destroyed. The Germans were quickly pushed back, but this incident dented the otherwise proud record of the Australian forces in France. (DOWN)

Steve’s unit stayed in the line until 21 April, when the 1st FAB was withdrawn for a few days of rest in the wagon lines, where it seems that Steve and his mates spent Anzac Day in 1917.

Australian artillery in Second Battle of Bullecourt,
Source AWM E0600

Gough ordered a second Battle of Bullecourt, across the same ground as the first. It began on 3 May, and involved three Australian divisions, with some ground successfully recaptured from the Germans. The latter abandoned their efforts to regain their lost ground by 17 May and the Australians were withdrawn.

In the two battles the AIF suffered 10,000 casualties (killed and wounded) and many men were captured, for no important strategic advantage. Any residual Australian confidence in British command all but disappeared.

The 1st FAB was relieved in the line by a British artillery unit on the night of 19/20 May and moved back to reach the Béhencourt Camp by 22 May, for a rest spell before returning north to Flanders. If Steve ever wrote any letters during these busy two months of front-line action, they did not survive.

Corporal S P Boulton was selected for officer training in England and on 6 June 1917 he entered the Officer Cadet School for the Royal Field Artillery, run at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.  (UP) A four-month gap in Steve’s letters ended on 29 July 1917 with a letter addressed from London to his mother.  Its context suggests he'd written some letters home during his previous two months in England, but they too are missing.

Artillery officers in WW1 required certain character traits to be demonstrated, as well as an aptitude for highly technical training, so their training was of much longer duration than officer training in the infantry, with a number of exams to be passed (DOWN). The training regime kept Steve away from the front line for five months, an absence which proved in hindsight to be another high point on his roller-coaster ride of 1917, because he escaped the bloodbath of the Battle of Passchendaele in Flanders in the second half of that year (UP), when many of his artillery mates were killed.

For more details, see Brothers in Arms: The Great War Letters of Captain Nigel Boulton, RAMC, & Lieut Stephen Boulton, AIF, available from a number of online outlets and several military bookshops.

Ammunition Carriers at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli

On Anzac Day next week there will be much talk of Gallipoli. Some commentators might mention the dangerous daily work of the ammunition carriers and might even refer to the July 1965 issue of the Journal of Limbless Soldier's Association, when William H S Kerr wrote on p 83:

I refer to those gallant and resourceful men, Bill McDonald and Lieut McHattie, of Newcastle, who, from the crack of dawn as the saying goes, were in charge of those pack mules - sometimes two and three. They scrambled up those hills and valleys of thorny scrub and steep ridges, without roads or tracks, hour after hour and day after day, to be sniped at from everywhere and shelled from all directions and had to supply the troops with food and ammunition.

(Note: I'm not sure of Bill McDonald's fate but McHattie died of wounds on the Western Front in 1917.)

Here's another description of this very high risk task, from Stephen Boulton, who enlisted in January 1915 as an Artillery Gunner in the 1st Division of the AIF and also carried ammunition to the troops at Gallipoli. He outlines his duties in a letter to his mother back in Sydney, a letter written on 19 Nov 1915 from his hospital in Malta, to where he was evacuated from Anzac Cove with severe dysentery:

You ask what work I was doing on the Peninsula. For the first fortnight or 3 weeks I was attached to the Brigade Amm. Column and had my dugout amongst the rest of the Column in Shrapnel Gully and generally started work at 8 o'clock at night, just about dark. Then proceeded down to the Ammunition Park on the beach from where we carried shell to the different batteries round Anzac. Each shell with cartridge case etc. for the 18 pounder field gun weighs about 25 lbs each, so we only carry two at a time, one on each shoulder. This is not a great weight but having to climb gullies and steep hills covered with big boulders and rocks it fairly pumps the wind out of you and numerous rests are taken.

All this is done during the night, some nights we would only get one or two trips, but others, where a lot of firing and heavy bombardment had taken place, we would be kept going till the small hours in getting the required number of rounds up. This sort of work is always done at night when possible as there is a good deal of risk attached to it and the Turk snipers are always on the look out to stop ammunition from getting up, and the brass cartridge cases of shells make an easy target to pick up. Of course we use all the saps communications trenches and firing line for cover and you are always told to keep off the sky line even at night time.

For the first week my shoulders got terribly sore with carrying the shell. Other shell of course was carried heavier than these, but we only took one at a time then. The 4.7 gun, one that was used at Ladysmith in the Boer war, went nearly 100 lbs weight and meant a walk of nearly 2 miles from the beach. Then there was the 6 inch howitzer which shells went over 100 lbs. without their charge. This work of course was rather uninteresting, but being fairly out in the open all the time, there was a fair amount of risk attached to it and the infantry chaps in the trenches used to tell us when we rested alongside them in the firing line they would sooner have their job. Some nights we wouldn't get any shell to carry at all, but about a dozen of us would be told off with pick and shovel to dig a gun pit for a new gun to be in a new position and be concealed. This was always done at night so as to keep its position utterly unknown to the enemy.

After leaving the B.A.C. to be lent to the D.A. Park I moved as you know my dug out down to the hill rising off the beach and quite close to my work which was done on the beach alone, amongst all the Ammunition. In this case we generally worked throughout the day, stacking ammunition unloaded off the punts and barges on the beach. Also loading ammunition of all kinds on to mules to go to the trenches and batteries where they could get to.

These mules with their Indian drivers are wonderful animals and adored by the Indian Johnnies as they are called. A mule could carry as much shell on specially made saddles as 4 or 6 men, so you can imagine how valuable and useful they were. They indeed saved the situation for us and did wonderful work with their transport of stores munitions etc. The Indians take the greatest care of them and after getting his cart loaded should anything in the way of a case of jam or bag of sugar fall off the Indian will never stop to pick it up as the load is made all the lighter for his mule who is all he thinks about. They suffered fairly heavily from shrapnel fire, but the Indians used to say "plenty mule get killed" but "plenty more mule."

This work on the beach came pretty heavy as the lifting of the big shells and boxes of 18 pounders and .303 small arm, am sure affected my insides and never gave me a chance of getting well over there, as if I had a rest for a day I would be better, but as soon as I returned to the lifting the whole recurrence would occur as bad as ever.

Excerpt from Brothers in Arms: The Great War Letters of Captain Nigel Boulton, R.A.M.C. & Lieut Stephen Boulton, A.I.F., available online. For more details, see Louise Wilson's  website

Letters from a school boy at BOA Slough, 1905

The old British Orphan’s Asylum (BOA) at Slough in Buckinghamshire offered free tuition and board to the children of ‘gentlemen’ where the father had died, leaving the family to suffer a declining standard of living. Children could only enter the school if they obtained sufficient ‘votes’ in an election campaign held amongst the financial supporters of the school.

In far off Australia, the widow of Englishman Philip Boulton, a bank manager in Melbourne prior to his death in 1895, feared for the prospects of her two Australian-born sons. Government schools in Australia were deemed not good enough for her boys, and she was unable to afford private schooling. English relatives stepped in to help and evidently did a fine job promoting the Boulton boys' cause, because both were accepted into BOA, on the other side of the world.

Still aged only ten, Master Nigel Boulton was one of the passengers for London when the R M S Australia sailed from Sydney on Saturday 9 September 1899. During his journey he wrote several letters home.

Nigel Boulton, c 1899

A year later, ten-year-old Master Stephen Boulton also set off alone on the long sea voyage to join his brother, leaving Sydney on 14 July 1900 aboard the P&O vessel Britannia. In both cases, a suitable person among the fellow passengers must have been charged with the responsibility for each boy's welfare. 

Stephen Boulton, c 1899

Their mother Dora, known as Dolly, was keen to get away and join her two boys in her native land. With her husband’s probate in England finally granted late in 1901, Dolly and her seven-year-old daughter Thea sailed for London on 24 June 1902 and enjoyed an 18-month stay in England as guests of various extended family members. Photos of the three children were taken at this time.

Nigel, Thea & Stephen Boulton, England c 1902

Since her own immediate family (her parents and her sisters) had made their home in Australia in the 1880s, Dolly returned to Sydney, departing Liverpool with Nigel and Thea aboard the Medic on 14 January 1904 and leaving Stephen behind at school in England.

Only three of Stephen's letters written from BOA survive, the first one ostensibly dated less than two weeks after his mother sailed for home. However, among those of his WW1 letters which were written in January, he sometimes forgot to advance the year. This seems to be the case with his '1904' letter, because in a postscript he mentions that he expects to see his family before year's end, and he returned to Australia in September 1905. He also mentioned being in the 5th form, another indication that he was in his final year of schooling in England before returning to Australia to complete his education: 

B.O.A.
Slough
Jan 26th 1904
My dear Mother
You see that I have got back to school from the holidays. I got back here on the 19th, John and Ken [Dixon, his second cousins] went back on the same day. I am now ninth top of the fifth, I was glad to hear that I was staying on till Midsummer.
Mr Gilliat during the Xmas holidays took two of his old boys and one of the boys still here to Bournemouth, for a fortnight or three weeks, he did not ask me to go, I did not find it out until I got back. [Presumably this was Algernon Gilliat, who built the boys' school in 1885. His wife Lady Mary, a member of Earl Mountcashell's family, had died in 1903.]

Mr Gilliat, c 1904-5

When Cousin Mary [his mother's cousin, mother of John & Ken Dixon] received that booklet of Flowers of Australia [painted by Margaret Flockton, Stephen's maternal 'Aunt Mog'], Maud and Bob were staying with her, and Maud was greatly overcome with them and the excellent painting she knew them all; Bob and her are both artists. Mr Gilliat told me that he had received one of them.

Margaret Flockton's 'Australian Wildflowers' booklet

Last Saturday he took us to a lake to skate, hardly any of us (the 5th form) could skate but we enjoyed ourselves very much in sliding.
Tell Nigel that Mr Veerman has left, and that last term, the chaps contributed to give him some music. The new master is rather decent- I am his water-boy, his name is Mr Roberts. Also tell him that the prefects are Barker 1, Robinson 1, Wilson, Shibbs, Potter, Hoyles. While the other 5th Form boys do shorthand I have to teach some boys writing, who do not do shorthand.
Last Wednesday we went to a lecture on New Zealand.
There is no more news to tell you so I will have to say Good Bye hoping you are all quite well and sending much love and kisses to all especially my Bab-Child [his sister Thea] and her children [her dolls].
I remain
Your Loving Son
S Boulton
P.S. I shall see you all before this year is out. Imagine it!!! I put that 10/- which Aunt Julia [Julia Charles, his mother's paternal aunt] gave me in the Bank.

It's highly likely that Maud & Bob were the Sennetts, an interesting couple. Prior to her marriage to Henry Robert Sennett in London in 1898, the talented Maud had been a successful young Shakespearian actress with the stage name of Mary Kingsley. Roughly the same age as Margaret Flockton, Maud a.k.a. Mary Kingsley had toured Australia in the early 1890s and this would explain the familiarity with Australian wildflowers mentioned in Stephen's letter. He described Maud and her husband Bob as artists, but this must have been a recreational activity as they were running her family's ornamental confectionery company. Australian women had the vote by the 1903 Federal elections and soon afterwards Maud became very active in the sufragette movement in England, leading to her arrest several times.  An unknown R.J.W., perhaps a woman appreciative of Maud's efforts and knowing that she loved the wildflower paintings, presented Maud with a handsomely-bound copy of Margaret Flockton's wildflower booklet at the end of 1904.

Back cover of Maud Sennett's copy of
Margaret Flockton's wildflower booklet.

Family memorabilia includes a number of photos of Mr Gilliat in company with groups of boys like the Boultons, living too far from their families to return home for the long Midsummer holidays.

BOA Boys with Mr Gilliat, 1904 or 1905

Now for Stephen's second letter. Wanting her sons to finish their schooling at The King's School, a school she deemed of suitable status for her boys and could now somehow afford, in 1904 Dolly had rented the home 'Willow Grove' in Philip Street, Parramatta. Stephen was keen to hear where he would sleep when he returned home in 1905:

B.O.A.
Slough
Feb 9th 1905
My dear little Bab Child
I am sending you this little post card album for your birthday, I know it will be late but I hope you won’t mind that, I thought you would like it to put postcards in, I think I remember you having some. You are an awful pro winning first class honours at music, you are much better than me.
Mother talks about me going in for the “matric” which will be impossible for me unless I can give up Latin, which I hate and am no good whatever at it, tell mother that Mr Hill can’t understand me not doing Latin when I do all the other subjects, he never makes me do any and knows I can’t do it, so he passes me over.
Tell Mother when she writes next to tell me all [about] the house and what sort of a room I will sleep in etc.
Thank you very much for the paper and little cutting. I sent the cutting on to Aunt Eleanor [his mother's paternal aunt Eleanor Flockton], she said when she wrote to me that she had only heard from you once since you left England.
There is no more news to tell you so I must say Good Bye sending much love and kisses to all hoping you are all quite well
I remain
Your Loving Nephew [crossed out] Brother
Stephen

Willow Grove, Parramatta

In the third and last of his schoolboy letters, written two weeks later, Stephen sent some good news to his mother but let her know he was not keen to endure ny more exams. He referred to himself as 'Toots', the same nickname subsequently used throughout his artillery service in World War 1:

B.O.A.
Slough, Bucks 
Feb 23rd 1905
Dear old Mums
“Well played Toots he has actually passed in his exam what an awful fluke”. The reports came last Thursday so I am just writing you a short letter to break the news. The detail reports do not come till the end of March, so I will have to tell you what I passed or failed in, anyhow that does not matter much, so long as I have passed.
I hope Thea will like the post-card album, I thought she might like to put her postcards in.
It is awfully cold here now there has been a wind blowing for the last 3 days.
I do not like the idea of going to King’s College when I get out there especially if I will have to do Latin every day, here I do not do hardly any, when I do do it, Mr Hill calls it my Latin (Boltonic Latin) and then passes on to the next chap.
I think I have got a chance of going away with Mr Gilliat again at Midsummer, but I am not sure, the other day he said to me “we will have to pick some boys for next summer”.
There is no more news to tell you so I must say Good Bye sending much love and kisses to all
I remain
Your Loving Son
Stephen
P.S. I did not take my own bike away with me at Mid-Summer, but each of us were provided with them by Mr Gilliat, they were fine ones.
Four chaps failed in the exam.

BOA Boys on Mr Gilliat's Bikes, Midsummer 1904

BOA Boys, Midsummer 1905

Stephen Boulton had dark hair and looks like the older and taller boy standing on the right of the seaside photo, presumably taken at Bournemouth not long before he left England.

Fifteen-year-old Stephen travelled home alone, reaching Sydney aboard the Medic in late September 1905 before briefly joining his brother at The King’s School where Nigel had recently passed his matriculation exams. 

The King's School, Parramatta, c 1890

By the start of the 1906 academic year Nigel had left school and was enrolled in the Arts Faculty at Sydney University, planning ultimately to become a doctor. During 1906 Dolly purchased a property at Broughton Street, Concord. If the Boultons ever lived at Concord, it was not for long, as they soon joined forces with Dolly's botanical artist sister Margaret Flockton and their mother, forming a communal three-generation household in rental property at Gladesville for the next ten years.

Trailing a year behind his brother at The King's School, there is evidence in 1910 of Stephen as an 'old boy' of the school but no record that he ever sat for his much-feared matriculation exams in 1906. Around the end of the 1906 academic year he went to work in the Pitt Street, Sydney branch of the Union Bank of Australia, his father's old employer. After seven years at the Union Bank, Stephen moved in early 1914 to the new government-owned Commonwealth Bank of Australia, around the corner in Martin Place.

In his personal life, from 1911 for four tennis seasons he was an active doubles tennis player for the Hunter's Hill Tennis Club, working his way up into the A Grade competition by December 1914, the month before he enlisted for the Great War.

NOTE: Other posts in this blog cover aspects of the lives of the Boulton brothers prior to their early teenage years. And for more details about their experiences during the Great War, see Brothers in Arms. Their aunt's life story is told in Margaret Flockton: A Fragrant Memory. 

The War That Changed Him

How a boy became a man.

Stephen Philip Boulton was born on 31 March 1890 in the booming gold-mining town of Clunes, Victoria. His father was a bank manager with the Union Bank of Australia (now today's ANZ Bank). When his father died in 1895, his mother, brother & sister joined members of his extended family in NSW, where Stephen received primary schooling. Aged ten, Stephen (pictured) was sent on his own on the long sea voyage to join his brother at the British Orphans Asylum, a boarding school in England. Both boys returned to Sydney & completed their schooling at The King's School at Parramatta. 

Stephen was a boyish 24-yr-old (pictured) when he left his job in the Sydney head office of the newly-established Commonwealth Bank and enlisted as a Gunner with the A.I.F. on 12 January 1915. He served at Gallipoli, in the dangerous job of carting ammunition from Anzac Cove to the trenches, but became seriously ill with dysentery & was evacuated to Imbros in September 1915, ending up in Malta.

He was 25 when he became a Bombardier, back in Egypt, on 12 March 1916, before the Australian artillery moved to the Western Front.

He was a toughened-up 26-yr-old (pictured) when he was promoted to Corporal on 27 September 1916, just after surviving the horrendous battle of Pozières in France.

He was a mature 27-yr-old (pictured) when he graduated from the Royal Field Artillery School in England and entered the officer ranks, on 3 November 1917. He served on the Western Front as a Lieutenant in the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade throughout 1918. Read more in Brothers in Arms: The Great War Letters of Captain Nigel Boulton, R.A.M.C. & Lieut Stephen Boulton, A.I.F., available online through BookPOD