Tag Archives: Purple ribbons

Re-visiting the graves of the fallen Coo-ees in August-September 2016

Posted on September 6, 2016 | 1 comment

Re-visiting the graves of the fallen Coo-ees in August-September 2016

When Stephen and I visited the graves of the fallen Coo-ees in France, Belgium and England in 2012 and 2014, we felt that it would have been a good idea to have left an Australian flag and a commemorative information card on each of their graves.

After our participation in the 2015 Coo-ee March Re-enactment, we spoke at a Coo-ee March 2015 Inc. (Gilgandra Sub-Committee) meeting about our plan to revisit the graves of the Coo-ees during the Centenary of Anzac period, and idea to also have a travelling wreath to rest on the grave of each Coo-ee.

The Committee provided one of the purple Coo-ee “badge” ribbons to go on our wreath, which had been created to be worn by the marchers during the Re-enactment in memory of the purple “badges” worn by the original Coo-ees during the 1915 Coo-ee March.

Wreath on Bill Hitchen's grave 26/8/2016 (Photograph: S. & H. Thompson)

Wreath on Bill Hitchen’s grave 26/8/2016 (Photograph: S. & H. Thompson)

After collecting our hire car at Heathrow Airport in London on 21st August 2016, we drove for 30 minutes to visit Bill Hitchen’s grave at Harefield (St. Mary) Churchyard. We laid the wreath against his headstone, and left an Australian flag and commemorative information card with a red poppy on his grave.

Commemorative card on Bill Hitchen's grave 26/8/2016 (Photograph: S. & H. Thompson)

Commemorative card on Bill Hitchen’s grave 26/8/2016 (Photograph: S. & H. Thompson)

 

Australian flag and commemorative card on Bill Hitchen's grave 26/8/2016 (Photograph S. & H. Thompson)

Australian flag and commemorative card on Bill Hitchen’s grave 26/8/2016 (Photograph S. & H. Thompson)

Over the next few weeks we will be visiting the graves of all the fallen Coo-ees who are buried in France, Belgium and England, and also the Menin Gate, V.C. Corner Australian Memorial, and Villers-Bretonneux Memorial, where the names of those Coo-ees who have no known grave are remembered. (Unfortunately we are not able to visit the grave of the Coo-ee buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery, at least at this time).

On our return to Australia we will create an Honor Roll in memory of the fallen Coo-ees on this website.

 

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Coo-ee article in Journal of the Ashfield & District Historical Society Inc.

Posted on April 3, 2016 | 1 comment

‘Coo-ee!’ article in Ashfield History No. 20, Journal of the Ashfield & District Historical Society Inc.

Ashfield History No 20, published by Ashfield & District Historical Society Inc., November 2015.

Ashfield History No 20, published by Ashfield & District Historical Society Inc., November 2015.

A very interesting 31 page article titled ‘Coo-ee’, written by Ann O’Connell, has been published in ‘Ashfield Answers the Call’, Ashfield History No. 20, Journal of the Ashfield and District Historical Society Inc.

Written from an Ashfield perspective, this provides a very informative overview of the 1915 Coo-ee March,  with information about the march from its beginning in Gilgandra to its end in Sydney, and the 22 recruits who joined the Coo-ee March at Ashfield.  The article also includes lots of very interesting illustrations, including some photographs which have not been published before being printed in this article.

These include photographs from the personal family albums of Lieutenant Frank Middenway’s daughters, now held by his granddaughters, Dorothy Clampett and Margaret Murden.  One of these photographs is of the Coo-ees marching in a procession in front of the Bathurst Court House, in Russell Street, Bathurst, and one of the ‘Coo-ees near Wang’, showing local people with pushbikes, horses and sulkies, greeting the Coo-ees on a country road near Wallerawang (both on page 42).

Lieutenant Middenway, from Lithgow Army Camp, accompanied Captain Eade and Staff Sergeant Major Scott from Lithgow to Sydney, to assist with recruitment on the Coo-ee March.[1] His signature as Attesting Officer is on many of the Coo-ees’ Attestation Papers in their service records.

This article also includes photographs of the Ashfield Drill Hall, where the Coo-ees stayed overnight on 11th November 1915.

There is also a photograph of one of the purple Coo-ee “badge” ribbons that has been kept in Lieutenant Middenway’s family album.

This journal issue is available from sale for $20.00 plus $10.00 postage and handling from the Ashfield & District Historical Society, PO Box 20, Ashfield, NSW 1800. See their publications page for further information:   http://users.tpg.com.au/adhsashfield1/ADHS-publications.htm

[1] ‘General’, Lithgow Mercury, 3 November 1915, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article218452406

 

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Posted in Remembering the Coo-ees, Research notes

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Badges worn by the Coo-ees

Posted on August 11, 2015 | 4 comments

Badges worn by the Coo-ees (purple ribbons with silver writing)

I was fascinated to read about the ‘purple badges’ worn by the Coo-ees in the following paragraph published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 13th November, 1915:

‘Thus had the little army grown since it started out from Gilgandra on October 10 twenty-five strong. Ten more men from the little western town, set in a district where bug hearts are, joined the original twenty-five on the way; and from Dubbo, Wongarbon, Geurie, Wellington, Stuart Town, Molong, Orange, Blayney, Bathurst, Yetholme, Wallerawang, Lithgow, and the towns along the mountains, and, indeed, all the way down to Sydney, other batches joined in, and were supplied with dungarees and white hats – and the purple badges with the silver lettering, “Gilgandra Coo-ees—Hitchens’ Own,” with which the contingent set out.’[1]

What were these “purple badges” that the Coo-ees had worn on the Coo-ee March?

I recently visited the State Library of New South Wales to view one of these “badges”, after learning that one of them was in the Alex Halden (Joe) Miller papers in the Mitchell Library Collection. I obtained permission to take the following photograph:

Coo-ee badge (purple ribbon). Part of the Mitchell Library Collection at the State Library of NSW (Photograph: H. Thompson 22/5/2015)

Coo-ee badge (purple ribbon). Part of the Mitchell Library Collection at the State Library of NSW (Photograph: H. Thompson 22/5/2015)

It was amazing to see the purple ribbon in such pristine condition – I could still see the sprinkles of the silver paint used for the lettering on the ribbon.

Researching the purple badges worn by the Coo-ees further, I found that at Euchareena the ‘school children ran races for Hitchen’s “Coo-ee” badge’.[2]

At Molong over a pound’s worth of “Coo-ees” ribbons were sold for a shilling each to raise money for the march.[3]

The Leader reported that the Coo-ees wore their purple badges pinned to their shoulders when they marched through Orange.[4]

The rolls of ribbon for the Coo-ee badges had been supplied by Wises’, Ltd., in Sydney.[5]

So, along with the ones worn by the Coo-ees, and these additional ribbons that were sold and given away during the march, there were hundreds of them in people’s possessions at the conclusion of the Coo-ee March in 1915.

I wonder how many other Coo-ee badge ribbons are still in existence 100 years after they were worn on the Coo-ee March, hidden away in a family member’s First World War memorabilia tin or box, or in a photo album or scrapbook?

[1] ‘The Coo-ees. Gilgandra Men in Sydney’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November, 1915, p. 19.

[2] ‘With the “Coo-ees.”’, Gilgandra Weekly, 29 October 1915, p. 2.

[3] ‘The Route March’, The Farmer and Settler, 26 October, 1915, p. 3.

[4] ‘Hitchen’s March to the Sea’, Leader, 25 October, p. 4.

[5] ‘Gilgandra Recruiting Association’, Gilgandra Weekly, 26 November, 1915, p. 4.

 

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