The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (1268) Trooper Hubert Charles Rigby, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment, 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 , the story for this day was on (1268) Trooper Hubert Charles Rigby, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF, First World War.

1268 Trooper Hubert Charles Rigby, 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF
Accidental death 30 December 1915

Today we remember and pay tribute to Trooper Hubert Charles Rigby.

Hubert Charles Rigby was born to Richard and Jane Rigby in October 1894 in Coleraine, Victoria. Hubert attended Coleraine State School, where he was a member of the Junior Cadets. After he left school, he worked in the district as a farm labourer.

Rigby enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in July 1915. As he was under the age of 21, his parents had to give their consent for him to serve overseas. As a farm worker, he had a good knowledge of horses, and Rigby joined the reinforcements of the 4th Australian Light Horse Regiment. He undertook preliminary training at the Broadmeadows army camp north of Melbourne. In September, he sailed for Egypt on the transport ship Hororata.

By the time Rigby arrived in Egypt, it was clear that the Dardanelles campaign had failed. The members of his unit had been on Gallipoli reinforcing Australian infantry, but were evacuated from the peninsula in early December. Rigby and the other members of the 4th Light Horse trained at Heliopolis, near Cairo, in preparation for future operations against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East.
However, Rigby would not join this campaign.

At about 7:15 on the morning of 28 December 1915, a single shot was heard at Racecourse Camp in Heliopolis. It had been accidentally fired by a Light Horse soldier who was emptying his rifle of ammunition. The bullet killed fellow Light Horseman Corporal William Young, and badly wounded Rigby, who was admitted to the Australian hospital in Cairo, but died two days later, on 30 December 1915. He was 21 years old.

Hubert Rigby is buried in the Cairo War Memorial Cemetery in Egypt, alongside more than 2,000 Commonwealth servicemen from the First World War. He was given a military funeral, and soldiers from his company fired a farewell volley. The minister, an army chaplain, later sent his condolences in a letter to Rigby’s parents.

Rigby was survived in Australia by his parents, his sisters Clarice and Dorothy, and his brother Alick. His cousin Private Harold Rigby also served in the AIF, returning to Australia in 1919.

Trooper Hubert Charles Rigby 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 Trooper Hubert Charles Rigby, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Thomas Rogers
Historian, Military History Section