Changing images of Valour, 1915-1923: Honour certificates from the First World War

Author: Elizabeth Willis

1. During the First World War young Australian men could choose whether to volunteer for the Australian forces. The decision to enlist was a private one, prompted by a variety of individual circumstances and personal considerations. Once the decision had been made, however, the recruit was swept up in an avalanche of official activity. As soon as he donned the uniform, he became a public figure, lumped together in official rhetoric with all the other "brave boys" who were ready to "do their bit". Until his death on active service, or his discharge, he was the subject of public and official attention, his individuality and personality subsumed in the mass of servicemen.

2. From 1915 onwards recruits in many shires and towns in eastern Australia were honoured by local government authorities. A common form of recognition was the award of honour certificates which expressed the community's thanks to the volunteer for enlisting. An examination of this aspect of official activity highlights some of the ways that officialdom responded to the volunteers. It investigates an area where official activities intersected the private world of the serviceman.

3. During and after the war, the imagery and wording on the certificates underwent many changes. These variations suggest differences in the ways in which servicemen were described, portrayed and commemorated in official ceremonial throughout the period and how the community's responses to the volunteer developed and changed.

Local government and the war

4. Most local government authorities supported Australia's involvement in the First World War and provided facilities to assist enlisting soldiers. Local authorities were particularly well-placed to combine the official response to enlistment and service with a more personal touch. Staff and councillors were officially and personally aware of the impact of the war on families in their community. Often the volunteer himself or his family would be known to council members. The names of local men who were killed or injured were noted in the council's minutes, and the town clerk wrote condolence letters to each bereaved family.[1]

5. The first honour certificates were presented in 1915 and 1916 to men who had yet to leave Australia, as a form of public acknowledgment as they marched off to camp. The certificates were designed by graphic artists working out of well-established metropolitan publishing companies in Eastern Australia. They were printed in colour on cardboard and were large enough to be framed. Although they were presented to the soldier, they were most often framed and displayed by his family at home, where they were a tangible memento of his patriotism. They became a source of pride for the family and a daily reminder of the absent one.

6. The citizens of Mascot, New South Wales, were among the earliest to commemorate volunteers in this way. Their certificate presented in April 1915 included an image of a uniformed soldier farewelling his mother, above the slogan "My country calls." It also included pictures of a field gun, troop ship, mounted soldier, and, uniquely, the flags of all the warring nations, including Germany.[2] (See Figure 1) Soon, though, images of family were replaced by those of soldiers in action.

7. Some of the early certificates were designed as a spur to further recruitment. Occasionally, they included a direct appeal for additional volunteers. The honour certificate from the Municipality of Manly expressed the thanks of the citizens to the volunteer, and then included an image of a recruitment march and the slogan "Manly: our answer to our brothers at Gallipoli. We are coming. Will you join us?"[3] More usually, the certificates utilised the common graphic images and phrases of private and national valour to promote a recognition of the bravery of the individual and to remind the community of the cause for which he had enlisted.

8. As the death toll mounted and wounded veterans returned home, many more local government authorities began to issue honour certificates. New recruits were still commemorated, but now certificates were also issued to injured, maimed and broken men who had been repatriated from the battlefields. They were also being requested by the grieving relatives of soldiers who had been killed and by the families of men who were already on active service. The certificates which had once encouraged others to volunteer now honoured men who bore the marks of the war on their bodies.[4]

9. The designers and publishing companies solicited business directly from councils, promoting the symbolic importance of such certificates and stressing the value of commemorating the brave in this way.[5] Some of the earliest designs remained popular during and after the war, but new designs were regularly produced. Publishers began to print two different types of certificates: honour certificates to thank soldiers who had survived and memorial certificates to commemorate the dead.

10. After the Armistice additional designs became available, and more councils purchased them. Several months after the end of the war, D.W. Paterson, a Melbourne publishing firm, was able to claim that it had supplied certificates to over 150 cities and shires in Victoria and New South Wales.[6] Paterson had the widest range of designs, but other Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane firms also produced honour and memorial certificates.

11. Many soldiers and their families saw the certificate of recognition as an important honour. In some places, the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) joined ratepayers in pressurising reluctant local authorities to issue certificates. Even though most councils planned eventually to commemorate volunteers by a roll of honour in the Town Hall, or by a prominent municipal war memorial, many families considered that these were not sufficient. They wanted an immediate and public recognition, and they wanted something that could be displayed at home.[7]

12. This early public recognition was often especially important to the families of the dead. They had been promised memorial medals, a commemorative plaque, and a certificate from the King honouring their loved one, but delays occurred before any of these were issued. The Memorial Scroll from King George V did not become available until August 1921, and the memorial plaques were despatched even later.[8] The locally-issued memorial certificate provided a domestic monument, which could be displayed immediately. The certificate, signed as it was by the mayor and other councillors, signified that the officials of the community recognised and shared the family's pride and grief.

13. Generally, memorial certificates were not given out at a formal ceremony; they were posted to the next of kin, or they could be collected from the Town Hall.[9] It was not until the unveiling of the roll of honour or the war memorial that the families of the dead stood alongside the families of the living in an official activity.

14. After the war, honour certificates were presented in formal ceremonies, part of the community's official welcome to the returned soldiers. The mayor presided at a civic reception or welcome-home social, and the event might include music, speeches by local officials, and sometimes a parade of the returned men. At Warracknabeal, Victoria, the shire president presided over an evening in the Star Theatre on 1 September 1919. An orchestra performed several pieces, Miss Ellison sang "The rose of no-man's-land", other (more humorous) songs were sung, the Minister of Education gave an address, the soldiers were presented with certificates and medals, and the evening concluded with the national anthem.[10] In Hawthorn, the second presentation of certificates to the "enlisted and returned soldiers, sailors and nurses of Hawthorn" occurred in the Central Gardens on a Saturday afternoon in November 1919. Over 500 volunteers received certificates in a ceremony addressed by two politicians, a brigadier-general and the mayor. The afternoon ceremony was followed by a social in the Town Hall.[11] The presentation of an honour certificate was a rite of passage which marked a structured stage in the official community reaction to the return of the soldier and a further step in the soldier's transition from military to civilian life.

Texts and slogans

15. Some councils commissioned a publisher to produce a special design for their certificates.[12] In many other cases, a council would adapt one of the many designs already available. The wording on the certificate was always chosen by councillors or council staff. Generally, it gave honour to the volunteer in the language of the public rhetoric of the time, a language which reflected the speeches at recruiting rallies and in school assemblies, the sermons in many churches, and the sentiments published in countless articles and poems.

16. Under headings like "Honour the brave" or "In freedom's cause", the certificates refer to the serviceman's "gallant action", using words like "noble", "duty", "patriotism" and "sacrifice" to describe how he "answered the call". Many of the later certificates commemorated the soldier's volunteer status, emphasising that he served his country of his own free will. When it came to describing the aims of the war, the council officials chose words which were slogans at the time. Most certificates claimed that the war had been fought "For Empire" or "For King and Country". It had also been fought "For Justice", "For Liberty" and "For Freedom". The certificates only rarely represented the war as having been fought "For God", only once "For Civilisation", and twice for "The Right". In general, the wording on the honour certificates stressed the political aspects of the war, and described the volunteer's actions in a context set by the rhetoric surrounding the justification for the British Empire's involvement in the war.

17. The text on the earliest certificate was a simple "In recognition of [your] action in serving with the Australian/ Expeditionary Forces in the great war".[13] This certificate was published before the Australian troops went into action at Gallipoli and does not include mentions of the soldier's bravery or the purposes of the war. As private descriptions of the war were shaped by the public rhetoric, the wording on the certificates became more elaborate:

A tribute to the boys of Essendon for the gallant services rendered to the Empire in the Great War. For duty nobly done. Presented to [...] by the Mayor [...] as a record of and in appreciation of his Patriotic Response to the Call of Empire by voluntarily enlisting for active service in the Great War. 29 April 1917.[14]

18. Later wordings might be even more specific about the soldier's place in history:

The Mayor, councillors and citizens of the City of Northcote hereby place on record their sincere appreciation of the loyalty and self-sacrifice of [...] who, in answer to the call of our King and Empire, served in the Great War of 1914 and honourably sustained the traditions of our forefathers on the field of battle.[15]

19. With the end of the war and the return to civilian priorities, some of the old rhetoric and certainty about the purpose of the war and the nobility of the soldier became dissipated. In December 1923 the residents of Hemmant and district in Queensland presented an honour certificate to John W. Palmer, one of their returned men. The design on the certificate included many of the symbols used in earlier certificates, like the Australian flag, the Union Jack, and the badge of the Australian forces. A heading in small text proclaims "For God, King and Country", suggesting this as the purpose and context of the war. But by 1923 the emphasis was on the individual soldier, not on the war aims or the extent to which the Australian soldier embodied an ideal of valour. In their certificate to Mr Palmer, the people of the Hemmant District wished primarily "to express their admiration of the high resolve that impelled him to offer his services with the Australian Imperial Forces in the Great War."[16] It is as if the soldier now had to be commemorated in different terms - not primarily for his bravery, nor for his part in preserving the nation, but for his moral courage, his "high resolve."

20. The wording on memorial certificates was sometimes different. Impersonal concepts like "Empire" and "Justice" were perhaps cold comfort for the grieving families of fallen men. When special memorial certificates were produced, they often explained the soldier's sacrifice more personally, more immediately, by reference to his friends, his family or his native land. They recorded that he "gave his life for his country"[17] or that he "died for home and country."[18] Sometimes they included a biblical verse: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."[19] The greater emphasis on tangible things - home, country, friends - seemed appropriate in a domestic memorial, which was to be displayed at home in the midst of the very people for whom the soldier had died.

21. Table 1 presents an analysis of the texts on thirty-seven different certificates. It identifies the phrases which were most commonly used, and also indicates the fairly wide variety of expressions and phrases which were chosen by council officials.

Table 1: Analysis of texts on certificates
(Thirty-seven different certificates were examined)

Reshaping the grief and the horror

22. Commemorative and memorial certificates were produced by male artists and printers as a commercial proposition, and purchased or commissioned by male officials as part of their public activity. The purpose and function of the commemorative certificates became clearer to the local authorities as the war proceeded. At first it seemed as if an official "thank you" to the soldier could be combined with a call to further recruitment; as if the certificate could have the same function as a recruiting poster. But it soon became clear that the certificates were being used as intimate memorials, in a domestic setting, framed and displayed in a soldier's home. These memorials became part of the daily life of those who had been most deeply affected by the war. Images had to be chosen which would meet the need of the volunteer's family for an appropriate commemoration.

23. The certificates were unlike all other forms of public war memorials. The shrines, statues and cenotaphs which were beginning to appear throughout the nation were meant to commemorate at a distance, and to remind the community, especially the young and those who had not directly participated in the war, of "what had been done in their name."[20] No such reminder was required in the homes of the soldiers; the impact and results of the war at an individual level were very apparent there. It is not surprising, then, that the designs on honour certificates changed as their function became more clearly recognised.

24. Analysis of the imagery used[21] indicates the extent to which private need and public rhetoric were in competition. It also suggests changes in the ways that artists, perhaps in response to the concerns of local officials, interpreted the role being played by the servicemen. At the beginning of the war, officials largely went along with the public rhetoric of war. They tended to choose designs which commemorated, in a very active fashion, deeds of valour and bravery. Later, a new type of design became popular, one which distanced the soldier from bloodshed, and made him a mythic hero. Finally, after the Armistice, the designs on some certificates suggest an attempt by officialdom to tame the surviving bearers of the ANZAC tradition.

25. The certificates were a result of a collaboration between a few publishing companies and a number of local authorities. Unfortunately, the records of the printers and the files of local authorities rarely survive, and where they do, they do not usually give much information about the values and preoccupations of the partners. It is no longer possible to re-create the discussions in council offices about why one design was preferred above another, so it is possible to make only some suggestions about the reasons for the changes in the ways the soldier was portrayed.

26. The earlier designs commemorated the brave man of action in the midst of battle. One of the first designs, drawn by Goldsworthy and Davey and printed by D.W. Paterson, remained very popular until well after the Armistice. The certificate shows two soldiers in khaki on a battlefield in front of the Australian flag. One has fallen facing the enemy; the other stands with fixed bayonet, ready to charge. The soldiers are pictured in a shield, flanked by the furled flags of the Allies. The inscription commemorating the volunteer is superimposed on an outline map of Australia, and the certificate has a border of wattle, the national flower. The Australian flag appears predominant among the Allied flags; its stave is crossed in front of the Union Jack.[22] (See Figure 2)

27. In the earliest version of this design, produced for the Town of Port Melbourne in 1916, the legend "Australia's son answered the call" appears below the shield. Later versions replaced that spur to further enlistment with the legend "For Liberty/ ANZACs/ For Justice". Some country shires who chose this design after 1918 emphasised the imperial connection: their certificates read "For Liberty/ Empire/ For Justice".[23]

28. After the United States entered the war in April 1917, the design was reworked to include the US flag. The two soldiers were redrawn at the same time. The fallen soldier now appears more emaciated, more vulnerable. In contrast, the standing soldier takes a slightly more aggressive stance, looking more squarely into the centre of the picture. He appears more heroic, more confident and more striking, the proud inheritor of the traditions of ANZAC, ready to avenge his country's losses.[24] (See Figure 3).

29. A similar design was produced by the Sydney printer, Boxham and Chambers. It pictured a battle scene with three Australian soldiers, bayonets fixed, advancing over the bodies of colleagues in a devastated European landscape. An outline map of Australia and images of local flora were also included.[25] These battle images recall the horrifying sepia photographs of war in the trenches at Gallipoli and in Europe which had become part of collective memory by 1918. They provided an immediate link with the heroism of the ANZAC as described and presented by C.E.W. Bean and others, and they pictured the soldier as an aggressive initiator. The soldiers being commemorated here were men of action, who had experienced undreamt-of hardships and whose actions set them apart from the common herd.

30. This commemoration of the individual soldier's activities occurred while the campaigns in Gallipoli and France were in progress and the achievements of the Australian troops were being widely celebrated by journalists and others. But such images were a daily intimation of the danger faced by the soldier, and the imminent possibility of wounding or death. Despite their bright colours, they were stark and frightful reminders of his terrible situation.

31. By the end of 1917, many designers were moving away from any depiction of the individual soldier in action. Battle scenes were still being portrayed, but they were usually impersonal, and on a huge scale. Troop ships were pictured leaving port, planes were drawn flying over tanks and guns, ships were seen steaming in formation; but the individual soldier was rarely seen. The designers used these images to indicate the scale and extent of the battle engagements. The family at home was being reminded of the immensity of the war but was being shielded from any immediate suggestion that their loved one might have been in personal danger.

32. In contrast, a second strand of images, produced towards the end of the war and after the Armistice, removed the soldier from the dirt and danger of the battlefield completely and presented him as a larger-than-life, mythic and ceremonial figure. These certificates portray uniformed figures presenting arms to fallen comrades, standing at ease to receive a victory wreath or bearing a flag in a formalised victory salute. These figures of soldiers are strangely passive. They do not often occupy the centre of the design but are positioned to one side. The soldier has achieved the fruits of victory; he no longer needs to fight for them; he is placed in a ceremonial context, heroic but resting, his work done. Indeed, the soldier appears to be waiting for a new stage in his life.[26] (See Figure 4 and Figure 5) These portrayals by designers of the soldier as a hero at rest, above and apart from the battlefield, mirror the statues of "the digger at rest" which were becoming the most popular choice for civic war memorials throughout the nation.[27]

33. In a third type of design, which became common towards the end of the war, no uniformed figure at all is seen. Instead, the image of the soldier is replaced by emblems signifying victory and valour. These designs are rich in allusions to classical literature, making use of laurel wreaths, shields, columns, plinths and memorials sculpted on stone. By 1918 a new design, again produced by D.W. Paterson, had become very common, overtaking the earlier, action-filled designs in popularity. It was issued under the auspices of the NSW Branch of the RSSILA, and was selected by many Victorian authorities.[28] A kneeling female figure, emblematic of Australia, holds up a laurel branch on a cushion. The eye is drawn to an image of the British flag, flanked by symbols of Australia and the other dominions. No image of a soldier is seen. The soldier's weapons lie abandoned and are partly hidden by the slogan "All honour to the brave". An eternal flame of remembrance burns in the foreground. The laurel branch is obviously in recognition of participation in some great movement, but the stench and horror of battle are far away. [29] (See Figure 6)

34. These designs contributed to the process of "reshaping the memory of the war."[30] The classical references placed the soldier in the tradition of mythic heroism. They provided new images - of nobility, valour and victory - to replace the old images of hardship and death. By representing the returned soldier as a mythic, valiant figure, they placed him at a distance from everyday reality. In the process, they elevated him to a place above non-combatant Australians, and helped promote a sense of the eternal importance and universal significance of his actions. They also allowed the soldier and his family to remember the actual experience of warfare in a different way. They gave them a set of images and a vocabulary which allowed them, if they wished, to put aside the horror of the trenches and to re-order the experience into something special, something akin to myth. In this way they could raise the veteran in his own estimation and that of his family.

35. A fourth strand of designs reinforced the idea that the soldier now had a new set of civilian responsibilities. They depicted the soldier as a patriot whose loyal duty was now to regain his heritage at home, to put his military experience behind him and to adjust to the responsibilities and rewards of civilian life. These designs replaced scenes of foreign battles with images of Australian life. Many included drawings of Australian flora, and some of the commissioned certificates incorporated photographs or drawings of local scenes: the town hall at Northcote, the Yarra at Kew, a favourite picnic spot at Shepparton. These designs linked the veteran closely with his home environment and emphasised the certificate's local context. They suggest a keen desire by council authorities to see soldiers rejoin a local community, and settle down to the quiet joys of suburban life.[31] (See Figure 7)

36. These designs may have been commissioned by local authorities to encourage a sense of civic responsibility among larrikin veterans. At the end of the war, many in the community were worried about the economic and social effects of the return of a large number of veterans. They were anxious that the returned men should integrate smoothly into the post-war community, settle down and take up civilian jobs again.[32] The preoccupations of council officials may have been reflected in the designs they chose for their commemorative certificates.

Table 2 presents an analysis of the imagery in 22 separate certificates, indicating the importance of the Australian and British flags as predominant images, and identifying the range of other symbols used.37. These designs may also reflect the beginnings of changes in community attitudes to the returned men. After a while, it becomes uncomfortable to live with a hero. Perhaps those who had stayed behind began to want to domesticate the survivors, and the memorial at home, the framed honour certificate, became gentler, quieter and less heroic.[33]

Table 2: Analysis of imagery on certificates
(Images on twenty-two certificates were examined)

Conclusion

38. The surviving certificates show changes in the way valour was portrayed during and after the war. Representations such as these may be interpreted as indicative of some strands and trends in thought and opinion. I have suggested how different representations performed different functions for the soldier and his family, and how they may reflect changes in community attitudes to the veteran. It remains now to discuss their acceptance in the home.

39. The presentation of honour certificates was one of the many public aspects of the commemoration of the returned soldiers, but whether or not they were displayed in the home was a particularly private aspect of their return. Although the certificates were a creation of officialdom, many of the individuals and families who received them found them acceptable as memorials and commemorations. Countless such certificates were framed and displayed in homes throughout Australia.[34] Many people wanted such a certificate and accepted and displayed it because it was an expression of at least some aspects of their own emotions and attitudes about their part in the war, or because it was a reminder of the absent family member.

40. In many families private pain must have outweighed public pride. We do not know how many soldiers boycotted the shire's welcome-home socials, or received the honour certificates only with irony and wry smiles. We do not know how many families did not display the certificate, but instead threw it away or kept it well out of sight. We do not know how many families grieved because the heroic figure portrayed on the certificate seemed so much the antithesis of the disturbed, shell-shocked or wounded veteran at home.

41. The official public commemoration of the returned servicemen took many forms. In many local communities, there was considerable discussion about how best to give public recognition to the volunteers of the AIF, and about what form a civic war memorial should take. The changes in the design of honour certificates, and their acceptance or otherwise, are mute evidence of some of the issues canvassed in the debates, during and after the war, about the place of the returned veterans, and the ways in which they should be commemorated.

© Elizabeth Willis

The author: Elizabeth Willis is Senior Curator, Australian Studies, at the Museum of Victoria.

Notes:

1. Outward correspondence, City of Fitzroy. Letter from Town Clerk to Mr Geo. Briggs, 22 February 1916; letter of 17 October 1917. See also Outward Correspondence Books, City of South Melbourne. Letter to E.D. Heather, 25 May 1917.

2. Honour certificate presented by the citizens of Mascot to Private Lancelot Reynolds, (collection of the Powerhouse Museum)

3. Certificate from the Municipality of Manly. (collection of the Australian War Memorial, PR 85/146).

4. Some councils issued certificates also to members of the nursing services.

5. Letter, D.W. Paterson Pty Ltd to the Mayor and Councillors, City of Melbourne, 29 June 1916, Melbourne City Council file 1919/4514.

6. Letter, D.W. Paterson Pty Ltd to the Town Clerk, Melbourne, 20 March 1919. Melbourne City Council file 1919/4514.

7. In some instances requests by families and ratepayers became quite strident. See Melbourne City Council file 1920/0679.

8. Letter in Australian War Memorial, AWM 3DRL/7319.

9. Letter, Town Clerk, City of Hawthorn, to Mrs E. Mallett, 7 November 1919, Outward Correspondence, City of Hawthorn, 1919

10. A dodger advertising the program is in the State Library of Victoria Manuscripts Collection, among the material donated by Mrs Toni Knight.

11. Hawthorn, Kew and Camberwell Citizen, 28 November 1919, p. 4.

12. Letters, Town Clerk, City of Fitzroy, to Jenkin, Buxton and Co. and D.W. Paterson, 12 June 1917, City of Fitzroy, Outward Correspondence Book, 1917.

13. Certificate presented to Private Lancelot Reynolds.

14. Certificate presented to Cpl Weatherby by the City of Essendon, (private collection).

15. Certificate, City of Northcote, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria).

16. Certificate, Residents of Hemmant and District, to John W. Palmer, December 1923, (private collection).

17. Memorial certificate, City of St. Kilda, (collection of the Australian War Memorial).

18. Memorial certificate, Shire of Gordon, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria).

19. Memorial certificates, Shire of Charlton and Shire of Wimmera, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria).

20. M. McKernan, "The Australian War Memorial: history in the Museum context", Museums Australia journal, 2-3 (1991-1992) 100

21. I have examined examples held by the State Library of Victoria, the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, the Powerhouse Museum, the Museum of Victoria, the Australian War Memorial, several local museum collections, and some private collections.

22. Certificate presented by the Town of Port Melbourne, (collection of the Museum of Victoria, Acc. No. 40007).

23. Certificate from the Shire of Dunmunkle, (collection of the Murtoa and District Historical Soc)iety; certificate from the Borough of St Arnaud, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria).

24. Certificate from the Borough of St Arnaud, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria).

25. Certificate presented by the City of Marrickville to Driver Leo Martin, 1 July 1918, (collection of the Australian War Memorial, in folder "Scrolls issued to veterans by Australian cities".).

26. Certificate presented by the People of the Town and Shire of Warrnambool, (collection of the Australian War Memorial, A967); certificate, Shire of Moreton, (collection of the Australian War Memorial, Acc. No. 23.633); certificate, Town of Coburg, August 1919, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria).

27. K. Inglis; "Men, Women and War Memorials", Daedalus, 116 (1987) 51-52

28. Certificate, Shire of Macquarie, (collection of the Australian War Memorial, A970). This certificate was also issued by Shires in Doncaster, Toolangi, Violet Town, Heidelberg, Horsham, Wannon, Maldon, Melton and Gisborne. Original artwork by Cecil G. Smith is in the collection of the Museum of Victoria, 89.1682.

29. For a description of this certificate by the printer, see letter by D.W. Paterson, 10 January 1918, Melbourne City Council file 1919/4514.

30. The term is from George L. Mosse, Fallen soldiers: reshaping the memory of the world wars, New York, Oxford University Press, .1990

31. Certificate, City of Northcote, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria); certificate, Town of Kew, (collection of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria); certificate, Shire of Shepparton, (artwork by Cecil G. Smith in the collection of the Museum of Victoria, 89.1684).

32. Marilyn Lake, "The politics of respectability: identifying the masculinist context", Historical studies, 22 (1986) 128-31.

33. If, as Annabel Cooper has asserted, part of the ANZAC tradition was a rejection of the cult of domesticity, local authorities were among those who hoped that this rejection was not a permanent one. A. Cooper, "Textual territories: gendered cultural politics and Australian representations of the war of 1914-1918", Australian historical studies, 25 (193) 407-10.

34. Many framed examples are held in local museums. Those in public collections in Melbourne almost all show evidence of having been framed at some stage. Information gathered about the South Melbourne certificate in the Museum of Victoria's collection records that it "hung in the dining room of the donor's family for many years."