Lieutenant Alex George Gilpin, 4th Imperial Contingent
Australian War MemorialAlex Gilpin was born on 20 August 1873, in Sandhurst, Melbourne, the second son of John Alexander Gilpin and Dorothea.
His father had extensive mining interests in Bendigo and Ballarat and the family later moved to Ballarat.
When Alex was 15 years old his mother died; his father re-married the following year and had more children. Alex went on to work at a bank before becoming a stock and sharebroker. He also maintained a strong interest in the military, gaining a commission in the local battalion of the Citizens’ Militia, along with his older brother Tom.
Alex and Tom Gilpin enlisted with the 4th Imperial Victorian Contingent for service in the Boer War in April 1900. They left Australia later that month, arriving in South Africa at a time when the British were conducting a counter-offensive against the previously successful Boer mounted troops. The brothers later separated, and did not serve close to one another.
In August 1900, Lieutenant Gilpin wrote a letter home to wish his father a happy birthday. In it he wrote, “We have got into the fighting in real earnest now … we went at full gallop across the open under a very hot fire, and all the troops in the rear gave us a great cheer. The bullets were raining all round us. We took the position, and the Boers retired to the next ridge. We only had one man shot, poor fellow.” From that point, Gilpin’s troops were kept for important scouting details.
The day after writing his letter, Lieutenant Gilpin and his men had retired to the Boer village of Ottoshoop.
A New Zealand surgeon there at the same time described the village as smelling “terribly of dead horse all over the place … we are almost unable to graze our horses here at all, and it seems much harder to hold this town than the place we were halted at further on.”
That evening the garrison in Ottoshoop came under heavy enemy fire. The New Zealand surgeon was not far away when Lieutenant Gilpin was shot. He wrote, “Gilpin was killed by a bullet through his lung and heart. He did not live many minutes, and was dead when I got to him.”
Alex Gilpin is buried in the Zeerust Cemetery. He had been killed on his 27th birthday.
His brother, Lieutenant Tom Gilpin, was welcomed home the following year, although his return was “tinged with regret for the loss of… [his] brother”. His father reportedly “felt the loss of his son keenly but often declared that he was proud to know that his son died in defence of the empire.”
Alex was not his only son to die in war; Alex’s half-brother Anthony would be killed in action during the landing on Gallipoli in 1915.
Meleah Hampton, Historian, Military History Section
Image: Group portrait of officers of the 4th Victorian Imperial Regiment Contingent. Alex George Gilpin or Thomas John Gilpin is 3rd on left, back row. See more: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P01222.004
