The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (4420) Private Edward James Crichton Glassford, 17th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (4420) Private Edward James Crichton Glassford, 17th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

4420 Private Edward James Crichton Glassford, 17th Battalion, AIF
KIA 26 September 1916

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Edward James Crichton Glassford.

Edward Glassford was born in 1890, the third youngest child of Jean and James Glassford of Neutral Bay in Sydney. He attended Fort St School in Sydney’s inner west, and later trained and worked as an accountant. Before the war, he gained experience with firearms as a member of the New South Wales Rifle Club. He was described as having a quiet, reserved demeanour.

Glassford enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Victoria Barracks, Sydney, on 14 December 1915, and weeks later began his training. His father had died in 1901, his mother in 1908, so on enlistment he listed his older brother David as his next of kin. Just over three months later, he sailed from Sydney aboard the transport ship Nestor with the reinforcements of the 17th Battalion. Glassford briefly trained in Egypt and later England, before sailing for the war on the Western Front in September 1916.

Glassford joined the 17th Battalion in the trenches near Zillebeke, about a kilometre south-east of Ypres on 24 September 1916. The 2nd Australian Division, of which the 17th Battalion was part, had taken part in the bloody fighting at Pozieres in July and August and suffered terrible casualties. They moved north to the Ypres sector in order to recover and prepare for future operations.

On the afternoon of 26 September 1916, Glassford was building a parapet in a support trench when his battalion came under shrapnel and high explosive artillery fire, a German retaliation for an earlier barrage on the German lines. He was struck by shrapnel in the head and killed instantly. Glassford was 26 years old, and had been at the front for two days.

His body was removed from the trenches and buried behind the lines later that night. He now lies in the Railway Dugouts Burial Ground near Ypres, where over 2,000 casualties of the First World War now lie.

His name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among almost 62,000 Australians who died while serving in the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Edward James Crichton Glassford, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section