Pickering brothers

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Shows locations of the three brothers names on the Auburn War Memorial

Matthew J Rutkin

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The names of three brothers from the local Pickering family are recorded on the Auburn War Memorial. Two from WW1 and the other from WW2.

Frank Hessell Pickering Jnr was born in Newtown in 1893. His brother Roland Taaffe Pickering was born in Cootamundra in 1895. By the early 1910s the family lived at Railway Reserve, Auburn, close to where their father Frank Snr worked in the clerical office of the Clyde Railway Yards.

During WW1 The first son to enlist was Roland age 19, a blacksmith’s striker who also worked in the Clyde Railway Yards. He enlisted on 14 August 1915, one day before his brother, Frank Jnr age 22, a telegraphist working in the NSW Parliament. Travelling to France via Egypt, the brothers ended up together in the 3rd Battalion. About a year after enlistment, and after only a few months at the Front, both brothers were killed in action in the fierce fighting at Pozières in July-August 1916. Frank was reported missing while working as an aerial signaller when his reconnaissance bi-plane failed to return on 22 July, and was later declared dead, age 23. Roland was a gunner killed in battle on 17 August, age 20. Neither of their bodies were ever found.

Another brother, James Alexander Pickering was born in Rockdale in 1902. He had been a 14 year old when his two eldest brothers had died, but by the time he enlisted in the 2nd AIF during WW2 on 7 May 1941 he was 39, and a local baker in Auburn.

James became a POW as a result of the fall of Singapore in 1942, and eventually ended up in the notorious Sandakan POW camp. After nearly three years as a POW, Frank died at Sandakan, reportedly of illness. His burial location is unknown.

Aside from Auburn War Memorial, where all three brothers are remembered with honour, they are also recorded on the Honour Roll at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Frank and Roland are remembered at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, and the St James Anglican Church Roll of Honour in Sydney.

James is remembered at the Labuan War Cemetery on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial to the Missing.

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