Elliott Room honours Pompey

A CLASSROOM within Ballarat Ranger Barracks has been named in remembrance of Lieutenant Colonel Harold Edward “Pompey” Elliott.

Inside the headquarters of the 8th/7th Battalion Royal Victorian Regiment, the Elliott Room recognises the late commanding officer of the 7th Battalion at Gallipoli who lived in Ballarat before the war and had been a student at Ballarat College.

Ballarat Ranger Military Museum manager Neil Leckie said Pompey was “extremely well known” within the Australian Army.

“He had an outspoken, sometimes fiery personality, and his men just adored him… Both the 7th Battalion when they first went to Gallipoli, and later on when he… raised the 15th Brigade,” he said.

“Even though he was only here for three years, he always said he related to Ballarat as being his town.

“We have the Pompey Elliott statue in Sturt Street, there’s Elliott House at Ballarat Clarendon College, where he was dux of his final year, and Elliott Street.”

The Elliott Room was officially opened last week by Rosemary Fellows, Pompey Elliott’s grandniece, and the granddaughter of his brother, George, a doctor who was killed in Polygon Wood, Belgium in 1917.

Ms Fellows lives in the US, and this trip had been her first back to Australia in three years due to the pandemic. She was gifted a unit plaque from the Museum, and a unit coin from the Barracks.

“Pompey Elliott didn’t have any grandchildren of his own, so there is no one in his line, but Rosemary is most interested in the history,” Mr Leckie said.

“With both brothers Pompey and George having the Ballarat connection, the Elliott Room honours them both.”

On the day of the room opening, attendees visited the grand former Elliott family home, Elsinore, near Lake Wendouree.

The home was built after Pompey’s farmer father Thomas found gold in Western Australia. The family moved from Charlton to Ballarat.

Yet to be officially opened due to COVID-19 restrictions is a larger classroom, the Bolton Room, named after Lieutenant Colonel William Bolton, commanding officer of the 8th Battalion at Gallipoli.