Federation Chamber, Parliament of Australia
Wednesday, 24 September 2018
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1. George Butcher
2. Lawler Sutton Byrne
3. Alfred Callaghan
4. Walter James Edward Callaghan
5. Sidney J Currall
6. George Arthur Dale
7. Frank Dalton
8. Frederick James Goodwin
9. Herbert Henry Gyler
10. Reuben Arthur Harvey
11. Harold Clement Hyde
12. Harry Lambert
13. William Middleton
14. Albert Edward Mitchell
15. Walter Charles Monaghan
16. Edgar Athling Morris
17. Thomas Partington
18. Walter Edward Peake
19. Edward Joseph Radford
20. Marcus Dill Reid
21. Herbert Leslie Rowley
22. Alfred Edwin Smith
23. Leonard Gilmore Smith
24. Leslie David Tynan
24 names.
24 men from Bankstown who went off to war over 100 years ago and didn’t come home.
And 24 men that Bankstown forgot.
There’s a memorial in Bankstown with the names of the local men who went off to war and fought and died in World War 1.
These 24 names are not on it.
We discovered this a couple of years ago when I organised for a book to be written about the men on that memorial. And those names weren’t on it.
We don’t know why their names weren’t there. Or why they were forgotten.
In just over two weeks it will be 100 years since the war they fought and died in ended.
As part of that commemoration the names of these 24 men – these 24 Bankstown Boys have finally been added to that memorial.
Every Anzac Day and every Remembrance Day we make a promise – we promise that we will remember them.
But we haven’t done that. Not these men. Not for the last 100 years. They were forgotten. But that’s not the case anymore.
This Remembrance Day in Bankstown, at long last, we will make good – finally – on that old and solemn promise – that we will remember them.
Lest we forget.
ENDS
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