PHILIP, William Hamilton (1884-1956)William Hamilton Philip was was born at 'Cape Wrath Station', Harnilton, on 12 May 1884, a son of William Philip and Amelia Frances Jane nee Hamilton. He was educated at educated at Hamilton Academy before boarding at Geelong College from 1900. He played in the College 1st Football XVIII in 1902.
He later gained pastoral experience on his father' properties, 'Kenilworth' and 'Mount William', before leasing 'Mirrannatwa' in the Victoria Valley in 1913, where he continued for two years before enlisting (No 24425) during World War I as a Driver in the AIF on 17 April 1916.
He sailed from Australia with the original 3rd Division Ammunition Column on
HMAT A37 Benambra on 27 June 1916. He was wounded two weeks after the Battle of Messines, on 20 June 1917. His good friend Driver Doug Sutherland descrobed the circumstances in a letter to his parents:
'I had a letter from Bill Philip two days ago. He is over in England and does not seem to be too bad. A bit of high explosive shell hit him in the knee, and he says his leg is all bandaged up, but from the way he wrote it is not bothering him very much. Provided it gets all right it is the best thing that could have happened to him. A 'blighty' is what everyone here is willing to get.' He died at Heidelberg on 14 February 1956.
He was invalided to England on
HS Pieter de Conick, to Horton County of London War Hospital on 28 June, and later to Australia, on 5 November 1917.
His brothers,
Ernest John Philip (1890-1971), Norman Lawrence Philip, and Hugh Gordon Philip, were also educated at Geelong College.
Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. p284 (citing Alexander Henderson, Helldersoll's Australian Families (1941); Gardner, Margaret (Ed.): Letters from the Front: A War Story that isn't the Story of the War; The Pegasus; National Archives.