Redhill Soldier’s Memorial
RSL (Port Pirie Sub Branch) Inc.During the Great War, sixty six men and one woman born in Redhill, South Australia enlisted with the colours. Seven men made the supreme sacrifice. Those who were killed were Frederick George William Osborn, Cecil Raymond Abbey Brangwin, George Wheaton, Richard Lindsay Gadd, Edward Albert Masters, Arnold Lealand Siviour, and Andrew Gordon Dunsford, M.M. (Military Medal)
The land upon which the Redhill Soldier’s Memorial (a marble obelisk) was erected was issued to a collective of local residents, appointed as trustees by the Crown, by way of a Land Grant that was issued in 1921.
“Mary Dunsford, Ida Mary Harris Smart, married women; John Francis Pilkington, John James Hayes, Richard Horace Dunsford and David Edgar Gilton Steele all of Redhill Framers and Alfred Thomas Tostevin of Rose Park, Storekeeper” were named as trustees of the Redhill Soldiers Memorial Fund. This was subject to the condition that the land be held “in trust to permit suffer and be used at all times as a site for a Soldier’s Memorial”.
The memorial was unveiled on Sunday November 6th 1921 before a large gathering of the people of Redhill. Councillor D. Brown presided while Mr. R. D. Nicholls, M.P., performed the ceremony, paying tribute to the men of the district who had foregone all the comforts of home life and risked everything in the defence of the Empire. “It was the duty of the citizens he said, to keep before them the memory of the great sacrifices they had made. It would be a fitting memorial to those who died if it were possible for some of their English soldiers, who fought side by side with the Australians, to come out and help ‘to people’ this great productive Commonwealth.” Messrs. M. M. Coffey and A. E. S. Clarke supported Mr. Nicholls' remarks, and Messrs. F. C. Bleech and E. E. Weaver (president of the local branch) spoke on behalf of the returned soldiers. The returned men placed a wreath on the monument in memory of their fallen comrades.
Sources:
National Archives of Australia
Trove Australia
