Studio portrait, on a memorial card, of 4496 Private (Pte)(later Lance Corporal) Alexander ...

Studio portrait, on a memorial card, of 4496 Private (Pte)(later Lance Corporal) Alexander (Alick) Smith Gilvear, 9th Battalion. Pte Gilvear was a labourer from the Glass House Mountains, Queensland when he enlisted in October 1915, the first of his family to do so. Over the next six months four of his brothers enlisted. They were followed by his father, who left his wife with three girls and a boy, all under 16, to carry on the work of the farm. Lance Corporal Gilvear was also the first of his family to die, being killed in action on 7th May 1917. On 2nd June 1917 The Queenslander newspaper carried the following Roll of Honour notice: "GILVEAR. Killed in action, in France, on May 7th, 1917, Lance-Corporal Alexander Smith Gilvear, third son of Private Thomas Gilvear and of Christina Gilvear, Glass House Mountains, age 22 years and 6 months. Much and deeply regretted. His King and country called him / The call was not in vain / And on Queensland's Roll of Honour / You will find dear Alick's name. Until we meet in Heaven above, Alick. Inserted by his sorrowing mother, sisters, and brother." The following year two of his brothers, 65 Corporal Kenneth Gilvear and 2428 Pte Robert Gilvear, were also to die; his father and two remaining brothers returned to Australia in 1919.