World War 1 History
With the outbreak of World War I many young men from Canterbury City volunteered to fight overseas. In an effort to record the names of these volunteers for this and future generations, members of Canterbury & District Historical Society have produced the publication - Canterbury's Boys: World War 1 and Sydney's suburban fringe.
Canterbury City Council has published a list of the 1911 names recorded in Canterbury's Boys on this website. Only brief information is given about the people listed in the book, so we recommend consulting the publication for further biographical information and historical information about World War 1 relating to the Canterbury District. Portraits of many local veterans are also included in the book.
Photo: Robert Hall of 41 Claremont Street, Campsie was born on 24 August, 1898. During World War I he enlisted in the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces) and this photograph was taken whilst he was in France.
Canterbury's Boys
A list of people from the Canterbury District who enlisted in the AIF during WW1 extracted from the publication Canterbury's Boys a Canterbury & District Historical Society project.
An indirect benefit of the Historical Society's World War 1 research project was locating many war memorials and monuments in streets, parks and buildings across Canterbury City. These monuments have been photographed and the photographs are held in the Local History Collection at Canterbury City Council Library Service, 14-28 Amy Street, Campsie. A photograph and transcription of the names on each memorial are now available on our web site.
War memorials
Photographs and transcriptions of many war memorials across Canterbury City.
Do you have an ancestor who lived in the Canterbury District who enlisted in World War 1 and is not listed on this site? If you can help with portraits or information about the young men listed in Canterbury's Boys or know the location of honour rolls or war memorials in Canterbury not on this website, please contact the Local Studies Department at Canterbury City Library, 14-28 Amy Street, Campsie NSW 2194, phone (02) 9789 9562, fax (02) 9787 2726, email: chrisk@canterbury.nsw.gov.au
The library will copy any material borrowed, deposit these copies in the Local History Collection and publish it on Council's Website with full acknowledgment. The library will also forward copies of this material to Dr Lesley Muir of Canterbury & District Historical Society for further editions.
Street Nameplates
To Commemorate World War 1 Street Names Program
There are always stories about how streets were named, but these stories tend to be forgotten with the passage of time. In 1999 Council decided to keep alive the history of local street-names associated with the First World War, by erecting nameplates to explain how they were named. Twenty five such street-names were identified in Canterbury, most of them grouped together in Earlwood and Canterbury, with smaller groups in Belfield and Belmore, and others in Punchbowl, Riverwood and Campsie. The nameplates were erected in a four year program from 2000 to 2003 The text of all the nameplates can be viewed by clicking on the link above.
Why were some of our streets named after World War 1 events?
Rae Fortier, Brian Madden and Lesley Muir, of the Canterbury & District Historical Society, identified street names associated with World War 1. Some were relatively easy to identify: those named after well-known battles or battlefields, or leaders of armies where Australians fought.
Lesley and Brian however, wanted to find a local connection between these battles or leaders and Canterbury people. They also wanted to find who named the streets. This has required many hours of research in the War Memorial and National Archives in Canberra, and the Land Titles Office. On behalf of Council, we would like to thank Brian and Lesley for sharing their research with us.
World War 1
Almost all Australians who served abroad were sent to the front line of battlefields in Europe and the Middle East, and so Australian troops suffered a high rate of casualties. 60,000 Australians died in World War 1, or nearly one in five of those who served abroad. Two thirds of our troops were either killed or wounded.
Canterbury and the war
When World War 1 began in 1914, Canterbury's population was only 19,000 people, but many of our local young men volunteered for service because they were patriotism and wanted to support Great Britain, considered Australia's 'mother country'. Research by Brian Madden and Lesley Muir uncovered more than 1900 men from the Canterbury district who volunteered to fight in Australian forces in the war. Three hundred and fifty of them were killed and many came back disabled. The loss and disablement of so many local men would have had a huge impact on the small Canterbury community.
These local volunteers are documented in a book written by Lesley Muir and members of the Canterbury & District Historical Society, called "Canterbury's Boys: World War 1 and Sydney's Suburban Fringe". The book has biographies of over 1,900 men and five women from the Canterbury District who volunteered for service in World War 1, with photographs of many of them.