Memorial service remembers 100 years since student fell

MORE than 70 people gathered at the E. J. T. Tippett Library at Federation University to remember Francis Gordon Davis, 100 years after his death.

Nearby, on the grounds of the Ballarat Technical School, is a plaque and a tall Cypress tree planted in his honour by his father on Arbour Day 1922.

The plaque reads, ‘To the Memory of Francis G. Davis. A past Student. Killed on Active Service 25-1-1919.’

The tree planting in 1922 was attended by Ballarat mayor, the headmaster and government dignitaries.

Francis Davis was the only student from the Ballarat Junior Technical School, originally part of the Ballarat School of Mines, to be killed during service in WW1.

Thanks to the work of Graham Andrews, a carpentry teacher at Federation University, the recent gathering, which included City of Ballarat mayor Cr. Samantha McIntosh, dignitaries and family members, remembered the young student on the anniversary of his death, with a special service and that included the laying of wreaths.

Graham Andrews, like many, had walked past the plaque for over 12 years, however he was drawn to it in December 2018, realising the 100th anniversary of the young soldier’s death was on 25 January 2019. He then set about researching the soldier and looking for family members, who didn’t know they were related to Francis Gordon Davis, nor aware of a plaque and tree in his honour.

Francis Gordon Davis’s grandparents were born in England and arrivied in Australia in 1851. His father, Alfred Ernest, born at South Melbourne, married his mother Matilda Rachel Henderson in Fitzroy in 1892.

Francis Gordon Davis was born on 9 August 1899 at North Lodge, Wendouree Parade, in what is now known as the ‘Gate keeper’s cottage,’ a building that was relocated back to the gardens in 2018. His father was the head gardener at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens. Francis was the youngest with three older brothers and a sister.

His brother Herbert enlisted in July 1915, his eldest brother Ernest in August 1916 and Edward in March 1918. Francis enlisted in April 1918.

Francis had attended the Ballarat Junior Technical School, where he obtained his Leaving Certificate. He also served four years in the Cadets and held the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.

Soon after his arrival in England he joined the Australian Flying Corps in July 1918 for training as an air mechanic at Tetbury in Gloucestershire. With the war over and soldiers looking forward to returning home, he was killed in an accident on 25 January 1919.

The Gloucester Journal of 1st February 1919 reported:

(Francis’s name was printed incorrectly as ‘Frank Gordon Davies’; his brother Edward Henry Frederick Davis was also printed incorrectly as ‘Wm. F. Davies’).

“Air-Mechanic Wm. F. Davies, brother to the deceased, deposed that the lorry left Leighterton at 6.30 on Saturday evening en route for Stroud. The lorry was supposed to carry about 40 passengers, he believed, but there were a great many more than that number on board. He thought there must have been about 80. … The lorry skidded very badly going down the hill, and he did not quite know what happened, but some of the men anticipating danger jumped out into the road, and his brother must have been amongst them. He had no complaint to make against anyone in respect of the cause of his brother’s death. The driver was most careful and did all he could. The only trouble he saw was the fact that too many men got on the lorry.”

Captain Thomas Roff Jagger, of the Australian Medical Corps, said that the cause of death was shock, following a compound fracture of the left thigh. The leg was nearly severed from the body.

Francis was buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section at the Leighterton Churchyard. He was given a full military funeral with a bugler, a firing party and pallbearers.

Ballarat has remembered Francis Gordon Davis, and a plaque in Ballarat’s Avenue of Honour also bears his name.

Lest We Forget.