On 1 November 1914, the first convoy of transport ships carrying troops of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and New Zealand Expeditionary Force left for Europe from Albany, Western Australia. En route, the convoy’s destination was changed to Egypt.

On board HMAT (His Majesty’s Australian Transport) Euripides, were Corporal Norman Roberts, a policeman from North Sydney who had entered Newington in 1902, and Colour-Sergeant Donald Neil MacGregor, who was teaching in Newington’s Preparatory School when the war broke out. Both were aged 27 and were serving in the 3rd Infantry Battalion. In the same unit was Bugler Charles Foster: he was not an Old Newingtonian but his bugle is now in the College Archives. He scratched the name ‘Euripides’ as the first of his many inscriptions on the bugle in the course of the war. With the 4th Battalion, also aboard the Euripides, was Corporal Harold Richmond Brown, a 19-year-old bank clerk, who had come to Newington in 1911.

Other Newingtonians were spread across the convoy. William Stewart Lucas, a 44-year-old solicitor, had attended the College from 1884 to 1887. He sailed aboard the Argyllshire as a Major in the Divisional Ammunition Column. Clive Kaeppel was the first Newingtonian reported to have volunteered direct from school. The Newingtonian reported that he had been accepted into the Light Horse, but he sailed on board the Afric as a Private in the 1st Battalion. Private Bruce Findlay, originally from Strathfield, had entered the College in 1899. He enlisted in Queensland and was with the 9th Battalion on board the Omrah. This was not his first sea voyage: in 1911 The Newingtonian reported him just returned from Colombo.

Private Richard Stanley Meek, a farmer who had come to Newington in 1894, was with the 2nd Battalion aboard the Suffolk. His brother, Hubert Kingsley Meek, at Newington from 1900 to 1905, had studied at Oxford and was on his way back to England from Russia when war broke out. He was commissioned in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in October and would serve at Gallipoli with the British forces. Also enlisting in England after study at Oxford was Carleton Kemp Allen, Dux at Newington in 1905, who was commissioned in the Middlesex Regiment on the outbreak of war.

A second convoy departed from Albany the next month. Among others, Sergeant Roy Morrell, a grazier from Bathurst, and Trooper Hayward Moffatt, a farmer from Longreach, sailed on 21 December. Both had entered Newington in 1903 and served together in A Squadron of the 6th Light Horse.

Most of these names are among the 52 Old Newingtonians on active service listed in the December 1914 issue of The Newingtonian, which is accessible on Spaces here and on the College’s website.

Mr David Roberts

College Archivist