ANZAC Day 2024, we remember one of Newington College’s greatest rugby players.

William George Tasker (ON 1911) was a member of the 1st XI and 1st XV (1909-1911), Captain of 1sts rugby (1911), selected for the GPS Combined 1st XV (1910-1911), and also a cadet and prefect.

After leaving Newington, William played first grade rugby with Newtown, was selected in 1912 for the NSW team, and was named in the Australian squad for the 1912 tour of America. In 1913 he was promoted to captain of Newtown, and in the same year made his Test debut against the All Blacks. One of Australia’s great five eighths, he played six Tests for Australia and thirteen games for NSW in a career cut short by the First World War.

On 26 January 1915 William enlisted in the 13th Battalion AIF. Taking part in the landing at Gallipoli, Private Tasker was shot in the legs and invalided home, where he was medically discharged. Desperate to re-enlist, yet still suffering from the effects of his injuries, in September 1916 he joined the 116th Howitzer Battery, 12th Field Artillery Brigade as a Gunner. Deployed to the Western Front, he was wounded twice before the Battle of Amiens in August 1918, when he was struck by an exploding shell. He died from his injuries on 9 August 1918, and is buried in Villers-Brettoneux Military Cemetery, France.

William Tasker was 26 years old.

Lest we forget.

Photographs: 1st XV (Tasker holding the ball); Private Tasker, 1915; William Tasker’s grave, courtesy of the Sir John Monash Centre, Villers-Brettoneux Military Cemetery ©DVA ... See MoreSee Less