The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (413) Private Cecil Frederick Boothman, 1st 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 Tom Rodgers, the story for this day was on (413) Private Cecil Frederick Boothman, 1st Battalion, AIF, First World War.

413 Private Cecil Frederick Boothman, 1st Battalion, AIF
Illness (pneumonia) 6 December 1914

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Cecil Frederick Boothman.

Cecil Boothman was born on 19 December 1871, the older of two children born to Frederick and Louisa Boothman of Launceston, Tasmania. Following the death of Boothman’s father in August 1890, Cecil Boothman became their chief breadwinner of the family, and worked as an axeman to help provide for his widowed mother and young sister Leila.
While working, he also served for two years in a local Launceston volunteer militia unit.

While he was in his twenties, Boothman moved to Melbourne, where he lived in a de facto relationship with a woman named Florence Mackay. The couple had two sons together, Archibald, born in 1903, and Leonard, born in 1904. By the beginning of the First World War, Florence and Boothman seem to have been separated: she lived in Perth with their two sons, while Boothman lived and worked in Sydney.

Boothman enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in early September 1914, only weeks after the outbreak of the Great War. Eligibility rules at the time stated that servicemen had to be between 19 and 38 years old. Boothman, who was 42 years old, gave his age as 36 so as to be allowed to serve.

He soon began training with the 1st Infantry Battalion. This unit was raised within two weeks of the beginning of the war and would become one of the first Australian units to land on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.

On 18 October 1914 he sailed from Sydney aboard the transport ship Afric as part of the first convoy of ships to depart for service overseas. After stopping at Albany, and Colombo, he arrived with the rest of his unit at Port Said on the Suez Canal in Egypt in early December 1914.

On 5 December, his ship arrived at Alexandria, Egypt, where the troops were to disembark, and began training in the hot desert conditions at Mena.

Boothman, however, never made it to shore. At 2 pm on 6 December 1914, he died of influenza contracted while making the long journey from Australia. He never saw action in the Great War, and was one of the first Australians to die on overseas service in a conflict that would eventually cost over 62,000 Australian lives.
He was 42 years old.

Today his remains lie buried at the Chatby Military and War Memorial Cemetery, Alexandria, Egypt, where over 2,250 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War now lie.
Private Cecil Frederick Boothman’s 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 Cecil Frederick Boothman, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

David Sutton
Historian, Military History Section