Wrist watch : Sergeant William Robert Dugay, 3rd Battalion, AIF

Wrist watch with white enamel face bearing Roman numerals (glass missing), and a brown leather strap.

Born at Basingstoke, Hampshire, England on 25 March 1880, census records show that reduced family circumstances had placed William Dugay in the local workhouse at an early age. He was subsequently apprenticed to a chimney sweep. He was working as a sweep when he joined the Royal Navy in February 1898, signing on for 12 years. Some of Dugay's seagoing service took place in Australian waters, and he elected to take his discharge in Sydney in 1910. His mother, Mrs Annie Woods, emigrated to Australia about the same time.

Dugay was employed as a bootmaker when he enlisted in the AIF on 1 September 1914. He was posted as a private, service number 119, to A Company, 3rd Battalion and left Sydney for overseas service on 20 October, aboard HMAT A14 Euripides. The battalion landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Dugay, by now a sergeant, was mortally wounded at Lone Pine in August 1915. His battalion suffered so many casualties that it proved impossible to keep an accurate record of the dates of wounding or death of its men, and Dugay's multiple shrapnel wounds are noted only as taking place between 7 and 12 August. Hospital Transport records suggest that he was wounded on 7 August. He was evacuated to Egypt but died there at the 1st Australian General Hospital on 26 August. Dugay is buried in the Cairo War Cemetery. This watch, which he had been wearing when he was wounded, was forwarded to his mother in 1916.