The Butlers

Butler memorial plaque mother father.jpg

Tasmanian police constable John Butler lost two sons, Henry Edward Butler and Gerald Bertram Butler, in World War One.

Gerald Bertram Butler

Gerald Bertram Butler, 19, was a school teacher at Campbell Town, Tasmania, when he enlisted on 17 August 1914, with the 52^nd Infantry Battalion. He embarked from Hobart, Tasmania, on board Transport A2 Geelong on 20 October 1914.

Private Butler embarked from Alexandria on the HMT Devanah on 2 March 1915 for Gallipoli. On 12 July 1915, while serving at Gallipoli, he was promoted to Corporal. On 29 August 1915 Corporal Butler was taken to hospital ill. He joined the unit at Mudros on 27 November 1915.

On 28 December 1916, Corporal Butler was promoted to Sergeant but was demoted from this rank due to drunkenness and resisting escort to detention while serving at Tel el Kebir on 23 March 1916. He pleaded not guilty to these charges but was found guilty and the sentence was reduced rank.

Private Butler mentioned the demotion in a letter to his father dated 23 March 1916:

“Have been in serious trouble – reduced to the ranks. Met an officer (I won’t mention his name)…’old Tasmanian friend…being off duty took some whiskey which made me silly.”

Private Butler served in France from 12 June 1916 and went missing in action on 15 August 1916 with Lance Corporal Norman John Alexander Hall, 23, of Hobart, after setting out with rations on about 14 August to support troops in the trenches. According to Corporal Morton Linthorne Butler (no relation), of Chudleigh, Tasmania: “A heavy bombardment was taking place and no more was heard of them”.

Private Charles Edward Donagher, of Parattah, Tasmania, was “quite certain” that Private Butler and Lance Corporal Hall were “buried in a shell hole at Pozieres on 14 August 1916 as they disappeared together very suddenly”.

Tasmanians Sapper Eric Burge, of Sorell, and Private Albert Edward Godwin, of Waratah, were in the ration party with Private Butler and Corporal Hall and reported:

“They were in a party with us just the other side of Pozieres on August 14^th. We were going up our support trenches with rations. We got up to the trenches; on the way back we had to go through a barrage. When we got back next day these two men were missing. They could not possibly be prisoners. There is no further trace of them. They must have been killed in the barrage.”

Private Gerald Bertram Butler and Lance Corporal Norman John Alexander Hall are commemorated at the Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux, in France.

Henry Edward Butler

Henry Edward Butler was an orchardist who enlisted on 1 December 1914 with the 3^rd Light Horse and embarked on 2 February 1915.

Trooper Butler was wounded in the Battle of Rafa, near Palestine, on 9 January 1917, and died that day. He was 25.

Trooper Butler was buried at the Military Cemetery El Ariah, in Egypt, and is commemorated at the Kantara War Memorial Cemetery, Suez Canal, Egypt. After the Armistice, the Kantara War Memorial Cemetery was more than doubled in size when graves were brought in from other cemeteries and desert battlefields, notably those at Rumani, Qatia, El Arish and Rafa.

“Peace perfect peace” is the inscription on his grave.

Returning the belongings

The belongings of a soldier named A.E. Butler were sent to Constable Butler, on Bruny Island. The package contained letters that were not his sons. Constable Butler wrote to the Office in Charge of Base Records, Melbourne, on 26 July 1918, explaining the mistake:

“…the contents have been examined by me and almost everything in it in shape of letters show they belonged to a soldier named A. E. C. Butler, 1^st Division Signal Co. who left from Broadmeadows. My son was not in any signal co. and left from Tasmania….”

Constable Butler noted the address of the Sapper Butler’s wife, Mrs Daisie Butler, of Greenwich, New South Wales, corresponded with Mrs Butler and notified Base Records in Melbourne that Sapper Butler’s kit had been forwarded.

Allocating mementos

Isabella and John Butler, the parents of Private and Trooper Butler, had divorced in 1912. Constable Butler later remarried.

Isabella Butler, of Albert Park, Victoria, wrote to Victoria Barracks in Melbourne, on 29 July 1922, requesting “you will duly consider allocating one or more of the mementos to cherish in memory of those whom I am the mother….to you I plead to grant me this measure of relief and prevent the whole of the mementos getting into the hands of those who can never value them as I do.”

The Officer-in-Charge of Base Records, wrote to Constable Butler on 24 July 1922 proposing the:

“hand over of the Victory Medals of the late Private HE Butler and Private G B Butler …also the memorial plaque of the latter….Had this not already been done it would have been recommended a complete set of one of the items for one of the lads be handed over to his mother in an act of grace in view of the fact that she was responsible for the upbringing of both of them”.

Constable Butler had already received:

1914/15 Stars
British War Medals
Memorial Plaque for Private Henry Butler
Memorial Scrolls
Brochure “Where the Australians Rest”

Mrs Butler received a:

Victory Medal for Gerald Butler on 4 September 1922.
Victory Medal for Henry Butler on 30 September 1922
A plaque for Gerald Butler on 2 October 1922

References

Australian Military Service record for 803 Trooper Henry Edward Butler, 3^rd Light Horse.

Australian Military Service record 69 Private Gerald Bertram Butler, 52^nd Battalion.

Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files, 1914-18 War 1DRL/0428: 803 Trooper Henry Edward Butler

Australian Red Cross Society Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau files, 1914-18 War 1DRL/0428: 69 Private Gerald Bertram Butler

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Australian War Memorial

Acknowledgement

Bruny Island Historical Society