Second Lieutenant Malby George Crofton Dodwell, 20th Battalion, AIF
Australian War MemorialMalby Dodwell was born on 23 March 1876 in Rydal, New South Wales, the eldest of three children born to the Reverend James Crofton and Margaret Mary Dodwell.
With his father’s ministering work, the Dodwells moved often during Malby’s youth and by the time he was of school age, the family had moved to Wellington, New Zealand. Malby attended school in Wellington and as a young man, he served in first the College and later the City Rifles where he was commissioned with the rank of lieutenant. He was also a well-known amateur athlete in the Wellington region.
In 1905 Malby married Mary Alice Cork, but the union was short-lived. His work as an indentor took him to the United States of America and while there, he submitted a patent for a steel belt radial rubber car tyre.
His travels also took him to England where he met and began a relationship with Alice Muriel Goodwin. They were married in 1910 and settled in Kidderminster. From 1911 they welcomed two daughters and a son. By the time the First World War began the family had moved out to Australia and had settled in the Sydney suburb of Manly. Muriel was pregnant with the couple’s fourth child. Muriel returned to England with her children in late 1914 and in March 1915 she gave birth to her fourth child, a boy. Sadly, he would never meet his father.
On 5 May 1915 Malby applied for a commission in the Australian Imperial Force. He was accepted and after training at an officer’s school, he was commissioned with the rank of second lieutenant and posted to the 20th Battalion, where he became a platoon commander in D Company.
Dodwell embarked from Sydney with the 20th Battalion on 26 June aboard the transport ship Berrima, bound for Egypt. After further training in the desert, the battalion left for Gallipoli in mid-August.
The 20th Battalion arrived on Gallipoli in the early hours of 22 August. The sounds of war would have been audible for quite a distance and the charnel smell of the peninsula which could be smelt up to a mile offshore would have quieted even the most ardent joker.
Dodwell and his comrades did not have to wait long to see action. With the August offensive in its final stages, the 20th Battalion was committed to the Battle of Hill 60 along with the other battalions of the 5th Brigade. Dodwell and his comrades were largely on the periphery of the fighting and casualties were light.
From September until the end of the Gallipoli campaign in December, the 20th Battalion rotated from Russell’s Top to support areas. On the 13th of December, a week before the evacuation, Ottoman artillery pounded the Australian positions around Russell’s Top. Dodwell was killed instantly when a shell hit the position he was occupying. He was 38 years old.
Dodwell was laid to rest in the Walker’s Ridge Cemetery. His burial was officiated by the 20th Battalion’s chaplain the Reverend Keith Single.
- AWM Roll of Honour https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1724238
