The First Australian to Die in the First World War

Officers’ swords these days have something of a remote historical unreality to them. They were made redundant generations ago as a wartime weapon, and the days when they were used in close personal combat defining courage and skill are long gone. But in a home in Sydney’s north, on the wall of a bedroom, there hung a sword and scabbard which were different. They seemed very personal.

The home belonged to my wife’s family. When I first saw the sword I asked about its origins. My wife’s father John (later Professor) Keep replied:

They belonged to my uncle Malcolm, my mother’s brother, who was the first Australian killed in the First World War. This is his dress sword when he was an officer in the East Lancashire Regiment. He had travelled with his parents and siblings to London around 1911, entered Sandhurst, became an officer and went to France in August 1914 and was killed very early in the first month of the conflict. It was still a gentleman’s war then and the Germans gathered his belongings (sword, badge, helmet and watch) and returned them to his family then living in London, through the Red Cross.

It came as a shock to discover some years later that Malcolm was not listed as the first Australian killed in the war—indeed he was not listed anywhere in the Australian War Memorial. The Australian listed as the first to die had died in September 1914 in New Guinea. So what was the story, and why him, not Malcolm?

William Malcolm Chisholm was born on February 25, 1892, the eldest child of a distinguished Sydney surgeon, William Chisholm, and his wife, Emma Isabel (nee Mitchell). In 1894 another son, Colin John, arrived and their final child, Helen Isabel Airlie (my wife’s grandmother), was born in September 1896.

The elder William Chisholm’s list of achievements and eminent hospital and Sydney University board memberships is characteristic of someone at the very top of his profession. The number one operating theatre in Sydney Hospital is named in honour of William Chisholm. He is the subject of an as-yet-unpublished book by Dr M. Coleman, who has researched the early surgeons of St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney.

Malcolm (as he was known in the family to distinguish him from his father) attended school at Sydney Grammar School, across Hyde Park from the family home in Macquarie Street. Together with his brother Colin he joined the school cadets, in which they both held rank. Malcolm also belonged to a regiment called the Scottish Rifles, so it appeared that had decided early on for a career in the military.

In 1911 the Australian government announced a new Citizens’ Army and that all existing forces (which had been state-based before Federation) were to be absorbed into the militia. This came into effect in 1912, so anyone wanting a career in the military before then was forced to look towards England and its long-standing army. Some fifty-two young men from Sydney Grammar School are listed in April 1915 as officers in the British Home Forces.

As William (his father) had studied in London for his medical degree and had taken his family back there for a year in 1902, it was natural for them later to return to London for Malcolm to attend Sandhurst, Colin to attend Cambridge University, and Airlie to attend school in Paris. The family left for England in November 1910 and Malcolm entered RMC Sandhurst in 1911. The Biographical Text of British officers who fell in the First World War states it simply:

Lieutenant William Malcolm Chisholm, 1st Battn. East Lancashire Regt.,
born on the 25th February, 1892, at 139 Macquarie Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was the son of Dr William and Isabel Chisholm and great-great-grandson of Gabriel Louis Marie Huon de Keriliau, of St Pol de-Lyon, Brittany. He was educated at Sydney Grammar School, and the R.M.C., Sandhurst; at Sydney he was a Lieutenant in the Senior Cadets of the Grammar School, and afterwards a Lieutenant in the Scottish Rifles, Sydney. He entered Sandhurst in 1911, and on passing out was gazetted to the East Lancashire Regiment in September, 1912; he became Lieutenant in December, 1913.

At the time it was not unusual to hear the word “home” used in referring to England rather than for the actual home address of Australians, and for many families that would remain the case for some years. The focus on education, and in particular tertiary education, on the primary produce markets which were now underpinning the wealth of the country, and on personal origins all ensured this focus was firmly on England. For this particular family the return to England was nothing unusual. Education, agriculture (the family had rural holdings) and the desire for a military career made the decision quite simple.

The rumblings in Europe, and Germany in particular, brought their daughter Airlie home from her school in Paris, and when Malcolm was commissioned in 1913 he was just twenty-one years old.

The Biographical Text continued:

The 1st Battalion East Lancashire Regiment formed part of the 11th Infantry Brigade, IVth Division of the Expeditionary Force, which Lieutenant Chisholm accompanied to France. He was shot through the abdomen on the 26th August, 1914, and died on the following day at Ligny, France, where he was buried. He had only detrained at Le Cateau at about 5 p.m. on Tuesday, the 25th August, was in action at 4 a.m. on the 26th, and was wounded at about 3 p.m. that day.

It was a tragically short time in battle, but that was something that happened to many more as the war dragged on. The shock to the family was profound, as initial reports had stated that he was wounded and in the hands of the German occupation forces and it was not for another two months that his death was finally confirmed.

The first death notice did not appear in Australia until November 12 in the Melbourne Argus and messages of condolence flooded in.In the Referee, Sydney, Wednesday, February 3, 1915:

Dr Chisholm, of Harrington Gardens, London, writes to thank Arthur Scott for his letter of condolence in connection with the loss of the doctor’s son Malcolm, who, after showing conspicuous bravery at the front, was shot on August 26. Malcolm Chisholm was a pupil of Arthur, and won the welter-weight division of the grammar school’s amateur annual tourney three years back. Another son of Dr Chisholm (Colin) is first lieutenant in the 9th Lancers, and, according to his instructor, is also a first-class boxer.

A memorial service was held for Malcolm in Sydney. The Western Star and Roma Advertiser on Saturday, March 27, 1915, ran this report:

 Memorial Service.

A memorial service was held at St Stephen’s Church, Phillip-street, city, on Sunday morning, in memory of the late Lieutenant Malcolm William Chisholm, son of Dr William Chisholm, formerly of Macquarie-street, who died of his wounds at Ligny on August 26 last.

The service was conducted by the Rev. John Ferguson, and among those present were Sir Anderson Stuart, Professor Watt, Dr Bell, Mr James Mitchell (Inspector-General of Police), Messrs. Hector Kidd, H. Adamson, and M. Pringle. Major Murray represented the District Commandant, and was accompanied by Colonel Jobson, 34th Infantry, and many other officers of deceased’s old regiment, the 25th Infantry (Scottish Rifles), and 3rd Battalion Senior Cadets. A company of the former regiment, with the band, also attended.

The Rev. J. Ferguson said the deceased, whose family when in Sydney had been members of St Stephen’s Church for many years past, was a lieutenant in the East Lancashire Regiment (the old 30th of the Line). When the recent catastrophic war broke out, the regiment was ordered to the front. He left home on Friday, August 21, on which day his regiment moved to Southampton. On Saturday it reached Havre, on Tuesday morning it was entrained for Le Cateau, the battle front, where it arrived at 6 in the evening, and bivouacked in a farmyard. On Wednesday they rose early, and were in action by 4 a.m. Lieutenant Chisholm was in the thick of the fray till 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when he fell mortally wounded by a splinter of shrapnel.

One of Lieutenant Chisholm’s closest chums told him, continued Mr Ferguson, that during the engagement the enemy came sweeping upon the East Lancashires in an overwhelming flood. There were no trenches or cover, and the regiment had to retire, fighting every inch of the way. Another officer, writing to Dr Chisholm, stated that he came along with the rearguard, and on his way passed Lieutenant Chisholm lying in a cornfield. Though the lieutenant begged to be left where he fell, a stretcher was made of rifles and a greatcoat, and the wounded officer was carried to a hospital at Ligny. This the Germans promptly captured, so that it was not until two months later that the anxious-minded parents obtained any news of their son. Lieutenant Chisholm was the first Australian officer to fall in the war, and was buried by the Roman Catholic priest in the parish church at Ligny. Mr Ferguson said that Lieutenant Chisholm’s last words on the field to his N.C.O. and men were “They’ve done for me all right, but don’t bother about me. Let my people know that I died fighting like a soldier.”

“And so it was,” concluded the preacher, “for our Australia’s brave soldier son. He was, I am confident, the first Australian-born officer to fall. Let us be thankful to God for such a type of ideal soldiership, pray that all the sons of our Commonwealth will go forth from us to toil, and fight, and, die for our King and Empire, for honour and for spiritual and memorial freedom, may they have the clean and brave, loyal Christian spirit with them.”

Dr Chisholm immediately made his services available to the Australian army, and by December 1914 was a major in the Army Medical Corps, having (along with many others) had his retirement age extended. He was sixty-one at the time.

William Malcolm Chisholm’s death was no secret, and the date of his death was well publicised. In fact some basic research revealed that he was being spoken of as the first Australian to die in the First World War as late as the 1950s.

Subsequent trips by the family to the Australian War Memorial (AWM) over the years revealed no mention of him anywhere and no interest in the possibility that he was the first to die. In later years we tried again with the same result. A member of the family at the level of lieutenant-colonel was summarily dismissed when he tried to present the information.

In the early 1990s Professor Keep was contacted by Mr Jack Horsfall, a First World War historian who was amazed to find, on one of his trips to the battlefield, an Australian soldier (Malcolm) and his mother (Emma) buried side by side in a small French country village cemetery. He was fascinated by the story and went on to write a manuscript about the family and its ancestral connections to England and France, noting that Emma’s gravestone in Ligny said that she was the great-granddaughter of Count Gabriel Louis Marie Huon de Kerrilleau.

William Malcolm Chisholm’s Australian heritage began in 1790 with the arrival of James Chisholm and Count G.L.M. Huon de Kerrilleau (1794) as members of the New South Wales Corps, and now Emma’s son had tragically died in the land of her forefathers.

My wife Airlie had in the meantime been contacted by another historian in Belgium and agreed to place William Malcolm’s photograph on his website as part of his reference to the early part of the First World War.

So far the list was English, Belgian and French who knew of Malcolm’s status but not Australian. Then a story titled, “French say first Australian to die in WWI was Sydney’s Lieutenant William Malcolm Chisholm” appeared in the News press on March 22 this year.

The Belgian historian Pierre Vandervelden wrote to Airlie to ask if she would be happy to be contacted by the Australian War Memorial, to which she agreed. Then the phone began to ring.

Given the effort made by my wife’s family over the years to provide the information to the AWM, their efforts to excuse their failings in this matter and the reasons given were interesting: “perhaps the family did not want it to be generally known about his death” (nearly 100 years too late for that) and “as he had joined a ‘foreign’ battalion the AWM could not have known as they don’t accept memorabilia from ‘foreign’ sources”.

This latter comment is extraordinary, as few Australians at the time would have regarded the UK as foreign. Are we to guess that because he joined a “foreign” regiment he did not qualify according to some bureaucratic definition of Australian? If so, then there are fifty more from his old school who also enlisted in English regiments at the outbreak of the war. Are they all ignored also?

Has the AWM suffered the same disease of indolence and complacency as so many public organisations do, and forgotten its primary duty to the Australian people? I hope not!

Anyway, now, after much pushing and fruitless prodding, the AWM is finally recognising a born-and-bred Australian who, like so many of his generation, travelled overseas to England to pursue a military career, who paid the ultimate price, and now is finally receiving the recognition he deserves as the first Australian to die in the First World War.

Now we can all share in the amazement of Jack Horsfall and also of the AWM, who expressed their own astonishment: “Was it true that his mother is buried beside him? If so it is an extraordinary story.”

Yes, Emma Chisholm is buried beside him in Ligny. She died in 1928 of pernicious anaemia aged sixty-one. In 1929, deeply respecting her grief, and in acknowledgment of her distinguished French heritage, her husband William reinterred his wife’s ashes to be beside her eldest son together at least in death, after war denied them both so much in life.

He also made a considerable donation to the village to assist with the upkeep of the graves. The memory of the Australian family is still very strong in Ligny. When Airlie’s parents went to visit in the 1980s the town feted them with a civic reception attended by the mayor.