Walter DUMBRELL

When the Boer War broke out, Walter Dumbrell was 17 years old. Because of his age, he required his father's permission to enlist. When it was not given he paid his own passage to Capetown where he represented himself as 21 and joined the 5th Contingent of the Queensland Imperial Bushman and served until the end of the conflict in 1901. Constable Dumbrell joined the Queensland Police in May 1910. Despite being married with an infant son, he joined the A.I.F. in September of 1915. Dumbrell embarked from Sydney aboard the HMAT Demosthenes A64 as part of the 41st Infantry Battalion on 18 May 1916. Over the course of a year and a half the 41st Battalion was engaged at Armentieres and Ploegsteert Wood. Here Dumbrell was affected badly by gas and had to be carried out of the line. In 1917 Dumbrell was promoted to Sergeant. On the afternoon of 19 April 1918, Sergeant Dumbrell, 33, was killed by shellfire in the trenches north of the Bray-Corbie Road. His death was instantaneous and he was buried nearby in a marked grave. In 1920, his remains were re-interred into the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery.