The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (514) Trooper Laurence Patrick Garvey, 2nd 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 Charis May, the story for this day was on (514) Trooper Laurence Patrick Garvey, 2nd Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF, First World War.

514 Trooper Laurence Patrick Garvey, 2nd Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF
KIA 14 May 1915
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 27 August 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Trooper Laurence Patrick Garvey.

Born in Surry Hills in Sydney, Laurence Garvey was raised in Bangalow in northern New South Wales. He was one of eight children.

By the outbreak of the First World War Garvey was working a farmer. He enlisted, aged 28, on 25 August, just weeks after war was declared, and was assigned to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment.

The 2nd Light Horse Regiment was one of three regiments of the 1st Light Horse Brigade – the first Australian mounted formation raised by Australia during the First World War. The regiment sailed for Egypt from Brisbane, arriving in December.

After months of training in the deserts around Cairo, the 2nd Light Horse Regiment deployed to Gallipoli without its horses, joining the New Zealand and Australian Division in May 1915. The unit immediately bivouacked near Quinn’s Post, one of the most contested positions along the Anzac Line and the site of intense fighting.

On 13 May Garvey’s regiment was sent in to relieve the unit at Quinn’s Post, and in over the next two days 33 men were wounded. Trooper Garvey was killed in action during this time; he was reportedly shot in Monash Gully, but there are scant details of the manner of his death. His date of death is listed as 14 May, and he is believed to be buried in Quinn’s Post Cemetery.

Trooper Garvey was a single man, with no wife or children. His father had died before the war and his mother lived in Bangalow. A notice of his death appeared in Lismore’s Northern Star newspaper in early June, but it included no further personal information.

Trooper Laurence Garvey’s name is listed here on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians from 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 Laurence Patrick Garvey, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Emma Campbell
Researcher, Military History Section