Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

No railway employment record card can be located for Wilfred BURNS, (Service Number 599). The NSWGR&T Annual Report for 1912 lists his appointment as a tram conductor on 1 September 1911, and the Government Gazette listing of 31 December 1911, shows him as appointed to Waverley Depot. The 1914 Annual Report shows that he resigned on 11 February 1914.
Burns had been born at St Mary’s, Hastings, Sussex England about August 1881.
He enlisted on 26 August 1914 soon after the war was declared. He gave his calling as ‘driver’ though other references in his file specifically mention tram driving. Although he at first answered ‘no’ to his marital status, this has been crossed out on his Attestation Papers. He also gave his uncle as his next of kin, though this has too been deleted in favour of a wife. A handwritten note at the foot of the document agrees to allot two-fifths of his pay for ‘the support of my wife and children’. He explained this later by revealing that:
‘When leaving Australia on the 19.10.14 I had made out an allotment to a woman in the name of Mrs. Burns to the amount of 4s.per day. I entered myself on the attestation form as married, but this was owing to the fact that I was engaged to this young woman previously, but she had a child of which I did not know anything until just before leaving Aust.
As I wished to save her any unnecessary trouble with her people at home, I passed her off as being married to me although she is not my wife. I made the allotment to her under certain conditions which she has not carried out to my satisfaction and she has told me she does not intend to remain at her home to look after the child.
Therefore, I wish to alter allotment to Mrs David Annesley, ‘Lasca’ Warrega St. Katoomba, N.S.W. and to allow her 1s. per day to look after the child whilst the mother is away.’
However, on 7 February 1918 Burns married Ethel, of Dorset, England. Mr. E G Burns, Wilfred’s father, later supplied information to state that that he had a wife and two children in Sydney prior to embarkation.
He left Australia through Sydney aboard HMAT ‘Euripides’ on 20 October 1914. He embarked from Alexandria on 5 April 1915 to join the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, at Gallipoli, and was promoted to Lance Corporal on the day after the landing, 26 April 1915.
Burns was wounded at the battle of Lone Pine between 6 and 9 August with a gunshot to his shoulder. He was evacuated to Mudros and then to Plymouth, England, to the Australian Hospital at Harefield. He spent a long time from September 1915 hospitalised with the wound and its consequences including pain in his feet on walking. In June 1916 he was ruled fit for general service once again and passed through a number of training units in England before proceeding overseas to France where he was taken on the strength of the 4th Australian Infantry Battalion on 8 March 1917. On 2 April he was again wounded, by shrapnel in his right hand, and this led to a series of transfers to hospitals and depots behind the lines. He re-joined the Battalion in June 1917 and despite his frequent absences was promoted to Corporal on 28 July 1917. More bouts of illness followed, including an ingrown toenail. He then attended the Brigade School of Musketry and the Brigade German Machine Gun School.
He was given leave in Paris, and then leave in the UK, had another hospital admission with illness, and was killed in action 30 April 1918, and is buried at Meteren Military Cemetery, Nord Pas de Calais, France, 10½ miles S.W. of Ypres.
Wilfred Burns left a tangled mess of relationships. Although he does seem to have been a tram driver in Sydney, his association with the NSWGR&T perhaps ended many months before his enlistment and the presence of his name on the Rolls of Honour is open to question.
(NAA B2455-3173213)