HENDY, James Clarence (1896- 1973) James Hendy was born 7 March 1896 at Geelong, the son of Ebenezer Edward Hendy and Minnie Ethelwyn nee Higgins, of Wynoona, Belmont.
He was educated Belmont State School, then Geelong Grammar Preparatory School, from where he went to Geelong College, attending there from 1908 until 1913.
The Annual Reports list him as receiving the following awards:
1908 Dux of Junior College
1908 1st English Junior College 3rd Form
1908 1st History Junior College 3rd Form
1908 1st Arithmetic Junior College 3rd Form
1908 1st Scripture Junior College 3rd Form
1908 1st Gymnastics Junior Class
The
Geelong Advertiser of 6 February 1932 described Hendy’s time in London in 1914-15:
'After finishing school he went to England in April 1914 as a member of a detachment of Australian Mounted Cadets under Captain Alex Rushall which embarked on a tour for educational purposes. In London on the night of the declaration of war, the cadets, with the verve usually attributed to young Australians, led throngs of people singing patriotic songs in Trafalgar Square and afterwards were in the forefront of a crowd which went to Buckingham Palace and called the King and Queen and members of the Royal family, who acknowledged the plaudits. The cadets volunteered to go to France on the outbreak of hostilities, but most of them were too young to be accepted. They were engaged by the War Office to do secret service work in the north of England, one of their tasks being to search for supposed petrol bases for Zeppelins. On one occasion they heard that there was a spy at Arnecliffe (in the Yorkshire Dales), and with the object of setting him by the heels they trudged miles over the snow, only to find when they arrived that he had gone. They were engaged on this kind of work for some months, and facetiously referred to it as ‘the bloodless war’. British army pay of 1/9 a day was given them. Three or four of the party enlisted in the British Army and one of them, H B D Hughes, formerly of the London Bank, Geelong, was killed in France in 1915. After spending eleven months abroad, Mr Hendy returned to Australia and early in 1916 enlisted in the AIF.' He enlisted on 21 February 1916, and embarked on
HMAT A11 Ascanius on 27 May 1916, arriving in France on 27 November, where he served in the 3,10th Infantry Brigade Headquarters. His Brigade saw further action on the Somme-Ancre Peninsula, Marrett Wood, Morlancourt, Villers Bretonneux, Accroche Wood, Amiens, Proyart, Curlu, Clery, and the Hindenburg Line, before leaving France on 1 October 1918.
The Australian War Memorial (AWM) Collection holds a group portrait of the Headquarters Staff of the 10th Infantry Brigade, Brigadier General W R McNicholl CB CMB DSO, with ‘Carl’ the Brigade dog, in front of the Chateau at Querrieu, while the Brigade was in reserve, prior to moving to the Hamel sector from which it advanced on the offensive of 8 August. It includes Pte J C Hendy, Captain R Lamble MC, and Lt C C Gale, all Old Geelong Collegians. Pte Hendy had leave in London in January 1919, and was attached to 39 Battalion for demobilisation, before his return to Australia on 27 May 1919 on
HMT Rio Pardo.
He married Inga May nee Dowsett in 1931. Clarence Hendy died on 2 February 1973.
His older brother,
Edward Percival Hendy (1894-1915) was also at Geelong College. He was wounded at The Nek on Gallipoli on 7 August 1915, and died on a hospital ship as a result of his wounds, being buried at sea.
(Captain Harold Bickley Drewe Hughes, the son of John Henry Drewe and Lydia S Hughes, of South Yarra, he served in 3rd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in action on 16 May 1915, and his name is commemorated on Le Touret Memorial)
Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. pp 211-212 (citing Pegasus; Geelong Advertiser, 6 February 1932; National Archives; Australian War Memorial E03828).