Edmondson V.C., Jack
Title
Edmondson V.C., Jack
Subject
Jack Edmondson V.C. - Sydney Morning Herald, 25 April 2007
Description
Our sacrifice, at home and abroad
Sydney Morning Herald
April 25, 2007
The story was powerful enough: a tale of a mother's love and her son's courage in war. But much more is now known about the family behind Australia's first World War II Victoria Cross winner. Tony Stephens reports.
When Australia's prime minister, Robert Menzies, read the declaration of war on September 3, 1939, Jack Edmondson immediately packed his gear for battle. His mother, Maude, asked what he would do in a tight place, say a bayonet charge. She said she hated the bayonet. "We all loathe it," he said, but "I know how to use it."
Mother: "Jack, never any decorations." Son, seriously: "No, mother, I want to come back."
On his last night at home, they had supper together and warmed themselves at the fire. He opened the piano, played the Maori Farewell, closed the piano, tidied the family books and went to bed. He sailed the next day on the Queen Mary.
Maude Edmondson wrote in her diary on April 14, 1941: "I shall never forget today. It started off so badly with Ada trying to take me to the [Royal Easter] Show ... and to make it worse Stuffy [the cat] for some reason joined in. He came and simply howled then ran from room to room. I had to put him out." She wrote on April 18: "Nothing going right yet ... went to the doctor ... he did nothing ... fighting terrific in Greece and North Africa not so good. I dread the casualty lists ...
"Account in the Herald of heavy fighting and much use of bayonet at Tobruk. Also gives an account of a charge in which a lieutenant and corporal took prominent parts on Easter Sunday night. Of course no names ... but I know the corporal is Jack ... I know also that all is not well with Jack. It was wet all day and Stuffy hasn't turned up yet."
On April 25, Anzac Day, Maude Edmondson rose early and made two rich fruitcakes for Jack. She packed one in a tin and filled the empty spaces with chocolates. "I am feeling afraid of something," she wrote. "Had a couple of brandies ..."
On April 26, Maude Edmondson received a telegram from the army minister, Percy Spender: "It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that NX15705 Corporal John Hurst Edmondson was killed in action on the 14th April ..."
Jack Edmondson had died on the day his mother had already said was so bad she would never forget it, the day Stuffy ran away. He died after an act of "outstanding resolution and leadership and conspicuous bravery" that won him a Victoria Cross, Australia's first of World War II.
The Herald unearthed Mrs Edmondson's diary in the Australian War Memorial in 1991. Now a relative, Ken Peacock, has discovered that the extended family history captures the essence of the Australian story.
There is more war to it, for war has been one of the nation's more frequent cultural pursuits. Peacock has discovered, for example, that six members of the extended family served on the Western Front in World War I and two at Gallipoli. Another died in World War II, in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at the infamous Sandakan, Borneo.
But that's not half the story. The family traces itself back to the early convicts, to the first waves in the sea of migration that has become an essential part of the Australian story, to the expeditions of explorers Charles Sturt, and Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, the early settlers and the gold diggings. Few families can have made such footprints on the milestones of Australian history.
Jack's maternal great-grandfather, John Hurst snr, was born in Leicestershire and arrived in Australia in 1845 after a 14-week voyage with his wife, Sarah, and five children. He farmed in the Cow Pastures area near Camden until 1862 before moving to a property on the Murrumbidgee River at Oura, near Wagga Wagga.
John Hurst jnr, one of the children, began paid work at the age of nine. When gold was discovered on the Turon fields in 1851, he was 15 and joined his father on the diggings. They walked all the way.
After slim pickings of gold, John jnr married Keturah Angel, the daughter of the convict Henry Angel and Mary Brooker. Henry, convicted of highway robbery in England, arrived in Australia in 1818 and worked in road gangs before being assigned to a farmer at Appin, near the properties of Andrew Hamilton Hume and William Hovell.
In 1824 Hume and Hovell began their expedition to Port Phillip, accompanied by six convict servants including Henry Angel. Angel became the first white man to swim the Murray River at Albury, when he carried a rope across the river to aid the team's crossing.
He was granted a ticket of leave in 1825 and a grant of land near the Tank Stream and the present site of Sydney Town Hall. The land extended to what is now Angel Place but it was poor farming land so Angel exchanged it for "better land" in the Corrimal area. He joined Sturt and Hume on an expedition to trace the Macquarie River.
Mary Brooker was the daughter of the convicts Jonathon Brooker and Mary Wade. Wade, who arrived on the Lady Juliana in 1790, was a street urchin of only 10 years when sentenced to death for stealing clothes and taken to be hanged.
But the sentence was rescinded by King George III during celebrations for his apparent recovery from mental illness and Wade was transported to Australia "for the term of her natural life". She met Brooker in the Norfolk Island jail.
She died at 87 with more than 300 descendants. Jack's mother, Maude, was the second youngest of John and Keturah Hurst's 12 children. Mary Wade was Jack Edmondson's maternal great-great-grandmother.
After their marriage, Henry and Mary lived in a timber shed on a farm near Wollongong; they farmed for 20 years at Hay before moving to a property outside Wagga Wagga.
Jack's paternal great-grandfather, Joseph Edmondson, was born in Ireland about 1803 and arrived in Australia in 1858 with his wife, Elizabeth, and possibly all six children. The youngest, also named Joseph, was three, and was to become Jack's grandfather.
He married Martha McKenzie in 1882 at the Gobbagumbalin property near Wagga Wagga. They had eight children who were all under 14 when Martha died in 1897. Joseph remarried and fathered two more children before his second wife died in 1902, leaving him with 10 children aged between two and 19. Joseph William (Will) Edmondson, the eldest, was Jack's father.
Ken Peacock believes that the determination to survive shown by Mary Wade, Henry Angel and John Hurst jnr in the goldfields and Joseph Edmondson raising 10 children was matched by Jack Edmondson's cousins, aunt and uncles in World War I.
John Gordon Edmondson joined the 7th Light Horse Regiment in October 1914, aged 20, and landed at Gallipoli on May 18, 1915, three weeks after the initial Anzac landing. Wounded, he returned to Australia in March 1916 with a bullet lodged in his chest. Three months later, he re-enlisted and went to the Western Front.
Alexander Keith Edmondson enlisted in February 1916, at 21, was wounded during the Second Battle of Bullecourt and returned to Australia. Margaret Esther Edmondson enlisted as a nurse in October 1916 and served in England and France until September 1918, when she became ill.
Harvey Herbert Edmondson, stepbrother of Jack's father, was two years old when his mother died and only 15 years and seven months when he enlisted. After the major offensive around Pozieres in July 1916, Harvey was listed as missing. His body was not recovered; he was just 16.
Albert Henry Hurst, an uncle of Jack's, was killed on the Western Front in 1917, at 25. Albert Ernest Hurst, a cousin, embarked for Egypt in 1915 with the Light Horse heading for Gallipoli, but became ill and returned to Australia in 1916.
Jack's cousin, Royden Victor Hurst, landed at Gallipoli in August 1915 and contracted blood poisoning in the trenches at Pope's Hill.
He died at sea from lymphatic leukaemia on the way back to Australia, aged 22.
Another cousin, Ashley Royden Peacock, joined the war at Messines in 1917 during the British offensive in Flanders. He fought at Passchendaele, Villers Bretonneux, Le Hamel, Amiens and Morcourt - where he won the Military Medal - Mont St Quentin, Peronne and Le Verguier during the Battle of the Somme and the Hindenburg Line offensive. A younger cousin, Raymond Edward Hurst (2/19th Battalion), was to die as a prisoner of war at Sandakan in 1945.
Then there are those from Ken Peacock's mother's side: John Cobden, her uncle, who fought with the NSW Imperial Bushmen in the Boer War; uncles George Leopold Sullivan and Arthur Charles Sullivan, of the 5th Division on the Western Front; and Desmond John Cormack (Distinguished Flying Cross), who fought in the Western Desert, at Tobruk, El Alamein and Morotai.
Maude Edmondson regularly corresponded with her nephews Royden and Ashley during World War I, as she would in the next world war with her son. She mailed newspapers, magazines, biscuits, fruitcake and cigarettes.
After Jack died, she became distant and depressed. Even her husband, Will, was shut out of her little world. Will had been taught by Dame Mary Gilmore, who dedicated a poem to Jack. Will died at Liverpool in 1958 and Maude at Glenfield in 1961.
Ken Peacock, Ashley Peacock's nephew, did his national service in 1956 and was among the men pledged by Bob Menzies as prime minister to defend the Suez Canal. He wasn't upset at missing the war.
Yet he, too, has left footprints on the Australian story. Born in Wagga Wagga, he graduated in science with honours in economics from Columbia University, New York. He joined Alcoa in 1965, becoming active in the nation's big, export-earning mining industry.
Then he joined the aerospace industry, became executive chairman of Boeing Australia Limited and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004. He is the chairman of the Joint Strike Fighter Industry Advisory Council, which advises the Government, and a member of the Australian War Memorial council.
While his uncle was alive, it was Ken Peacock's task every Anzac Day to walk him home. It was the one day of the year he met his "digger" mates, the one day he drank alcohol. His duodenum and stomach remained ulcerated by chlorine and mustard gas from the war. He knew booze would make him sick.
At the end of the day, the old soldier would be violently ill. His wife, Bell, who had nursed him after the war, would call him "a silly old fool". He would say it was worth the agony.
Sydney Morning Herald
April 25, 2007
The story was powerful enough: a tale of a mother's love and her son's courage in war. But much more is now known about the family behind Australia's first World War II Victoria Cross winner. Tony Stephens reports.
When Australia's prime minister, Robert Menzies, read the declaration of war on September 3, 1939, Jack Edmondson immediately packed his gear for battle. His mother, Maude, asked what he would do in a tight place, say a bayonet charge. She said she hated the bayonet. "We all loathe it," he said, but "I know how to use it."
Mother: "Jack, never any decorations." Son, seriously: "No, mother, I want to come back."
On his last night at home, they had supper together and warmed themselves at the fire. He opened the piano, played the Maori Farewell, closed the piano, tidied the family books and went to bed. He sailed the next day on the Queen Mary.
Maude Edmondson wrote in her diary on April 14, 1941: "I shall never forget today. It started off so badly with Ada trying to take me to the [Royal Easter] Show ... and to make it worse Stuffy [the cat] for some reason joined in. He came and simply howled then ran from room to room. I had to put him out." She wrote on April 18: "Nothing going right yet ... went to the doctor ... he did nothing ... fighting terrific in Greece and North Africa not so good. I dread the casualty lists ...
"Account in the Herald of heavy fighting and much use of bayonet at Tobruk. Also gives an account of a charge in which a lieutenant and corporal took prominent parts on Easter Sunday night. Of course no names ... but I know the corporal is Jack ... I know also that all is not well with Jack. It was wet all day and Stuffy hasn't turned up yet."
On April 25, Anzac Day, Maude Edmondson rose early and made two rich fruitcakes for Jack. She packed one in a tin and filled the empty spaces with chocolates. "I am feeling afraid of something," she wrote. "Had a couple of brandies ..."
On April 26, Maude Edmondson received a telegram from the army minister, Percy Spender: "It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that NX15705 Corporal John Hurst Edmondson was killed in action on the 14th April ..."
Jack Edmondson had died on the day his mother had already said was so bad she would never forget it, the day Stuffy ran away. He died after an act of "outstanding resolution and leadership and conspicuous bravery" that won him a Victoria Cross, Australia's first of World War II.
The Herald unearthed Mrs Edmondson's diary in the Australian War Memorial in 1991. Now a relative, Ken Peacock, has discovered that the extended family history captures the essence of the Australian story.
There is more war to it, for war has been one of the nation's more frequent cultural pursuits. Peacock has discovered, for example, that six members of the extended family served on the Western Front in World War I and two at Gallipoli. Another died in World War II, in the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at the infamous Sandakan, Borneo.
But that's not half the story. The family traces itself back to the early convicts, to the first waves in the sea of migration that has become an essential part of the Australian story, to the expeditions of explorers Charles Sturt, and Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, the early settlers and the gold diggings. Few families can have made such footprints on the milestones of Australian history.
Jack's maternal great-grandfather, John Hurst snr, was born in Leicestershire and arrived in Australia in 1845 after a 14-week voyage with his wife, Sarah, and five children. He farmed in the Cow Pastures area near Camden until 1862 before moving to a property on the Murrumbidgee River at Oura, near Wagga Wagga.
John Hurst jnr, one of the children, began paid work at the age of nine. When gold was discovered on the Turon fields in 1851, he was 15 and joined his father on the diggings. They walked all the way.
After slim pickings of gold, John jnr married Keturah Angel, the daughter of the convict Henry Angel and Mary Brooker. Henry, convicted of highway robbery in England, arrived in Australia in 1818 and worked in road gangs before being assigned to a farmer at Appin, near the properties of Andrew Hamilton Hume and William Hovell.
In 1824 Hume and Hovell began their expedition to Port Phillip, accompanied by six convict servants including Henry Angel. Angel became the first white man to swim the Murray River at Albury, when he carried a rope across the river to aid the team's crossing.
He was granted a ticket of leave in 1825 and a grant of land near the Tank Stream and the present site of Sydney Town Hall. The land extended to what is now Angel Place but it was poor farming land so Angel exchanged it for "better land" in the Corrimal area. He joined Sturt and Hume on an expedition to trace the Macquarie River.
Mary Brooker was the daughter of the convicts Jonathon Brooker and Mary Wade. Wade, who arrived on the Lady Juliana in 1790, was a street urchin of only 10 years when sentenced to death for stealing clothes and taken to be hanged.
But the sentence was rescinded by King George III during celebrations for his apparent recovery from mental illness and Wade was transported to Australia "for the term of her natural life". She met Brooker in the Norfolk Island jail.
She died at 87 with more than 300 descendants. Jack's mother, Maude, was the second youngest of John and Keturah Hurst's 12 children. Mary Wade was Jack Edmondson's maternal great-great-grandmother.
After their marriage, Henry and Mary lived in a timber shed on a farm near Wollongong; they farmed for 20 years at Hay before moving to a property outside Wagga Wagga.
Jack's paternal great-grandfather, Joseph Edmondson, was born in Ireland about 1803 and arrived in Australia in 1858 with his wife, Elizabeth, and possibly all six children. The youngest, also named Joseph, was three, and was to become Jack's grandfather.
He married Martha McKenzie in 1882 at the Gobbagumbalin property near Wagga Wagga. They had eight children who were all under 14 when Martha died in 1897. Joseph remarried and fathered two more children before his second wife died in 1902, leaving him with 10 children aged between two and 19. Joseph William (Will) Edmondson, the eldest, was Jack's father.
Ken Peacock believes that the determination to survive shown by Mary Wade, Henry Angel and John Hurst jnr in the goldfields and Joseph Edmondson raising 10 children was matched by Jack Edmondson's cousins, aunt and uncles in World War I.
John Gordon Edmondson joined the 7th Light Horse Regiment in October 1914, aged 20, and landed at Gallipoli on May 18, 1915, three weeks after the initial Anzac landing. Wounded, he returned to Australia in March 1916 with a bullet lodged in his chest. Three months later, he re-enlisted and went to the Western Front.
Alexander Keith Edmondson enlisted in February 1916, at 21, was wounded during the Second Battle of Bullecourt and returned to Australia. Margaret Esther Edmondson enlisted as a nurse in October 1916 and served in England and France until September 1918, when she became ill.
Harvey Herbert Edmondson, stepbrother of Jack's father, was two years old when his mother died and only 15 years and seven months when he enlisted. After the major offensive around Pozieres in July 1916, Harvey was listed as missing. His body was not recovered; he was just 16.
Albert Henry Hurst, an uncle of Jack's, was killed on the Western Front in 1917, at 25. Albert Ernest Hurst, a cousin, embarked for Egypt in 1915 with the Light Horse heading for Gallipoli, but became ill and returned to Australia in 1916.
Jack's cousin, Royden Victor Hurst, landed at Gallipoli in August 1915 and contracted blood poisoning in the trenches at Pope's Hill.
He died at sea from lymphatic leukaemia on the way back to Australia, aged 22.
Another cousin, Ashley Royden Peacock, joined the war at Messines in 1917 during the British offensive in Flanders. He fought at Passchendaele, Villers Bretonneux, Le Hamel, Amiens and Morcourt - where he won the Military Medal - Mont St Quentin, Peronne and Le Verguier during the Battle of the Somme and the Hindenburg Line offensive. A younger cousin, Raymond Edward Hurst (2/19th Battalion), was to die as a prisoner of war at Sandakan in 1945.
Then there are those from Ken Peacock's mother's side: John Cobden, her uncle, who fought with the NSW Imperial Bushmen in the Boer War; uncles George Leopold Sullivan and Arthur Charles Sullivan, of the 5th Division on the Western Front; and Desmond John Cormack (Distinguished Flying Cross), who fought in the Western Desert, at Tobruk, El Alamein and Morotai.
Maude Edmondson regularly corresponded with her nephews Royden and Ashley during World War I, as she would in the next world war with her son. She mailed newspapers, magazines, biscuits, fruitcake and cigarettes.
After Jack died, she became distant and depressed. Even her husband, Will, was shut out of her little world. Will had been taught by Dame Mary Gilmore, who dedicated a poem to Jack. Will died at Liverpool in 1958 and Maude at Glenfield in 1961.
Ken Peacock, Ashley Peacock's nephew, did his national service in 1956 and was among the men pledged by Bob Menzies as prime minister to defend the Suez Canal. He wasn't upset at missing the war.
Yet he, too, has left footprints on the Australian story. Born in Wagga Wagga, he graduated in science with honours in economics from Columbia University, New York. He joined Alcoa in 1965, becoming active in the nation's big, export-earning mining industry.
Then he joined the aerospace industry, became executive chairman of Boeing Australia Limited and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004. He is the chairman of the Joint Strike Fighter Industry Advisory Council, which advises the Government, and a member of the Australian War Memorial council.
While his uncle was alive, it was Ken Peacock's task every Anzac Day to walk him home. It was the one day of the year he met his "digger" mates, the one day he drank alcohol. His duodenum and stomach remained ulcerated by chlorine and mustard gas from the war. He knew booze would make him sick.
At the end of the day, the old soldier would be violently ill. His wife, Bell, who had nursed him after the war, would call him "a silly old fool". He would say it was worth the agony.
Contributor
Bob Stevens
Collection
Citation
“Edmondson V.C., Jack,” Mary Wade Family History Association Inc., accessed December 3, 2024, https://www.marywadefamily.org/items/show/137.