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MACDONALD, Alexander John (1893-1915) +

MACDONALD, Alexander John (1893-1915)



Alexander John Macdonald was born 4 April 1893, the son of James Hadden McDonald and Emily Maria nee Moreton, of Sebastapol, near Ballarat.

He was educated at Brim State School in the Wimmera, then Geelong College as a boarder in 1907, and as a day boy in 1908. He had been boarding with his uncle, Herbert Moreton, of Boswell Park, Brim, while his parents served as missionaries in India. Soon after leaving school he took up farming with his two brothers on Wave Hill at Quandary, near Temora, New South Wales, and was working there at the outbreak of war.

He embarked on HMAT A3 Orvieto on 21 October 1914 for Egypt, and then Gallipoli where he was killed in action at the Landing on 25 April 1915, aged 23. Graeme Massey in hisbook, Gallipoli Heroes wrote:
‘During the 24 May armistice his body was found with sixteen others near Johnston’s Jolly. Chaplain McKenzie buried them in a mass grave but there was no marker placed on it.’

Thus Private MacDonald (555) of 5 Battalion has no known grave. His name is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial, which stands on the site of the fiercest fighting at Lone Pine and overlooks the whole front line of May 1915.

The Temora Independent reported ‘a memorial service was held at Quandary on 4 July 1915 after news of his death’ .

Alick Macdonald’s younger brother Sergeant Railton Yuddha Veeran Macdonald served in 3 Battalion, and was wounded at Lone Pine in 1915, and again at Pozieres between 22 and 25 August 1916, where he was seriously wounded by an explosion on the battlefield, and suffered a facial injury and a compound fracture of the left arm which necessitated its amputation at the shoulder. He returned to Australia, embarking on 16 January 1917.


Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. pp68-69 (citing Commonwealth War Graves Commission; Temora Historical Society Inc; Graeme Massey, Gallipoli Heroes: a tribute to the men from Western Victoria who gave their lives for their country; Photo Pegasus August 1915.)