EVANS, Norman McTaggart (1892-1961)Norman McTaggart was born on 11 November 1892, the son of Rev John McTaggart Evans and Mary nee Warnes. He was enrolled as a day student at Geelong College in 1905 with an entry address of St Paul's Church, Geelong. He had previously attended Geelong Grammar Preparatory School from 22 Feb 1904 to July 1905.
His enlistment papers state that he served 4 years in the Geelong College Cadets, 1 year at senior cadets as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was noted to have an appendicitis scar. He was described as 5 foot 6 inches tall.
He enlisted (No 593) in the AIF on 17 August 1914, embarked for Egypt on
HMAT A3 Orvieto on 21 October 1914 with the 5th Battalion, and Gallipoli. He wrote a long letter home from the Front, which appears in the
Pegasus Letters Section, explaining the circumstances of his wounding. He had a bullet wound in the left knee at Gallipoli which caused permanent damage and restricted movement. He also reported having rheumatic fever at Gallipoli (Lemnos) in July 1915, without being hospitalised, which at the time, caused him shortness of breath on exertion.
He was invalided home with Stanley Mack and Charlie Dowling on 7 September 1915. He returned to the Front as a Corporal and Driver (No 11720), serving in France with the 3rd Division Supply Column, Mechanised Transport, embarking on
HMAT A19 Afric on 5 June 1916 as
Doug Sutherland (Old Geelong Collegian), also a Driver, described meeting Norman to his parents:
'It is now about 10 pm and I have only been back about half an hour. Syd Gluth (Pte Sydney Alfred Francis Gluth, of Minyip and Hawthorn, enlisted with C Squadron, 4th Light Horse, transferred to 4th Battalion as a Lieutenant) and I went down to fix up some men going back to a rest camp. They sent us down in a motor car and it was a grand little run. It was a beautiful evening and for a change only rained a very little. We left just after we had had our tea, and it was about a six mile run, and Norman Evans drove us. Do you remember McTaggart Evans, the late parson in Geelong? Norman is one of his sons and an old College boy, and is now a car driver at Headquarters.' He returned to Australia after the war, embarking on 23 July 1919.
Norman Evans died in 6 August 1961.
His brother,
Stanley Warnes Evans (1893-1954), was also educated at Geelong College.
Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. p188 (citing Margaret Gardner (Ed.): Letters from the Front: A War Story that isn’t the Story of the War; Pegasus; National Archives).