History of Victoria Barracks
The Colonial Period
There had been various temporary military barracks built in Melbourne in the period immediately following its founding in 1834, but they were mostly temporary wattle and daub structures, which soon fell into disrepair. The discovery of gold in 1850, just as the Port Phillip district became a colony in its own right, made Melbourne one of the richest and fastest growing cities in the world. Greater security was needed to protect the gold both in the ground and in transit to the metropolitan banks. More British troops were despatched to the colony.
Building on the Victoria Barracks site commenced in 1855. The money for stage one - £13,850 - was voted by the Victorian Parliament, and the site - bounded approximately by Sandridge Road (now City Road), Moray Street, Coventry Street and Brighton Road (now St Kilda Road) - was decreed. The first two buildings were built by the soldiers who were to occupy them - the 40th Regiment of Foot (the Somersetshire Regiment).
The area of the Victoria Barracks Parade Ground took shape from about 1860. The Soldiers Barracks (G Block) formed the western border, the foundation and basement of the Officers Quarters (A Block) the eastern border, the Ordnance Stores and Armoury (C Block) the southern border, with the Staff Sergeants Quarters (J Block) and the stable complex to the north. By about 1880, the external walls were set in their current alignment, and the swamps in the western portion of the original allocation were excised from the Barracks area. Many ceremonies took place within the Barracks, including parades for the departure of troops for the Maori Wars (1870s) and the Boer Wars (from 1899).
Federation
After federation in 1901, the headquarters of the Commonwealth Department of Defence were established at the Barracks. As a result of the pressure for office accommodation, most buildings were progressively converted from living to office accommodation. For the duration of WWI, the Barracks accommodated the entire Department Headquarters. The Victorian Military District Headquarters was moved to C Block - formerly the armoury, which had been extended in 1910.
The initial Headquarters of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), on its creation in 1911; and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), from its formation in 1921, were also located in Victoria Barracks.
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| War Room, A Block |
During WWII the first floor of A Block New Wing held the offices of the Defence Secretariat, including the office of the Secretary of Defence, Mr. Frederick Shedden; and also the office of the Minister.
War was declared against Germany on 3 Sept 1939, and the first War Cabinet Meeting was held in the 1st Floor conference room on 27 September. Those attending were the Prime Minister and Treasurer (R.G. Menzies), the Attorney General, the Ministers for Supply and Development, Defence, External Affairs and Information, and Commerce, as well as the Secretary. The room was enlarged and fitted out as the War Cabinet Room in the succeeding weeks. The Chiefs of Staff (Navy, Army and Air Force) attended War Cabinet meetings as required in an advisory capacity, as did other Ministers and Allied visitors - including the Supreme Commander South West Pacific Area, General Douglas MacArthur.
In October 1941 the Labor Party won government in a general election, and John Curtin became Prime Minister. War against Japan was declared on 8 December 1941. The declaration was signed by the Governor General and the Prime Minister in the War Cabinet Room.
The War Cabinet continued to meet in the Barracks until January 1946.
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| C Block, Photo taken in Mar 1979 |
Major military 'tenants' since 1946 have included Headquarters 3 Division (CMF/Army Reserve), the Soldier Career Management Agency, the Defence Signals Directorate, Army Logistics Command, Headquarters 3rd Military District, Defence Centre - Melbourne, and - currently - Headquarters Support Command Australia.
A major refurbishment program was undertaken in the early 1990s. The former barrackmaster's cottage was converted into a multidenominational chapel, and B Block - in the Barracks' south eastern corner - redeveloped as a Heritage centre.
Federal Cabinet has met in Victoria Barracks twice in recent years, in part to commemorate the World War II cabinet meetings. The Keating Cabinet met in 1995 (as part of 'Australia Remembers' 1945-1995), and the Howard Cabinet in 1996.
Did you know?
- The first bluestone buildings in Victoria Barracks were erected in 1856 - at the peak of the Victorian gold rush.
- Australia's involvement in the Boer War, both World Wars and the war in Korea were planned and coordinated - by government and military staff - from the Barracks.
- Victoria Barracks occupies a unique place in history as the foundation headquarters of all three of Australia's 'fighting' services - the Navy, Army and Air Force.
- The declaration that Australia was at war with Japan was signed in the Barracks by Governor-General Lord Gowrie and Prime Minister Curtin, on 8 December 1941.
- In the Barracks' War Cabinet Room, decisions were made which had a dramatic effect on the prosecution of World War II, and in the determination of Australia's standing in world affairs in the post-war years.
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| Crimean War Cannon in front of A Block on St Kilda Road |
Dawn Service
The History of the Dawn Service
The Dawn Service on ANZAC Day has become a solemn Australian and New Zealand tradition. It is taken for granted as part of the ANZAC ethos and few wonder how it all started. Its story, as it were, is buried in a small cemetery carved out of the bush some kilometre's outside the northern Queensland town of Herberton.
Almost paradoxically, one grave stands out by its simplicity. It is covered by protective white- washed concrete slab with a plain cement cross at its top end. No epitaph recalls even the name of the deceased. The Inscription on the cross is a mere two words - "A Priest". No person would identify the grave as that of a dedicated clergyman who created the Dawn Service, without the simple marker placed next to the grave only in recent times.
It reads:
"Adjacent to, and on the right of this marker, lies the grave of the late Reverend Arthur Ernest White, a Church of England clergyman and padre, 44th Battalion, First Australian Imperial Force. On 25th April 1923, at Albany in Western Australia, the Reverend White led a party of friends in what was the first ever observance of a Dawn parade on ANZAC Day, thus establishing a tradition which has endured, Australia wide ever since."
Reverend White was serving as one of the padres of the earliest ANZAC's to leave Australia with the First AIF in November 1914. The convoy was assembled in the Princess Royal harbour and King George Sound at Albany WA. Before embarkation, at four in the morning, he conducted a service for all the men of the battalion. When White returned to Australia in 1919, he was appointed relieving Rector of the St John's Church in Albany. It was a strange coincidence that the starting point of the AIF convoys should now become his parish.
No doubt it must have been the memory of his first Dawn Service those many years earlier and his experiences overseas, combined with the awesome cost of lives and injuries, which inspired him to honour permanently the valiant men (both living and the dead) who had joined the fight for the allied cause. "Albany", he is quoted to have said, "was the last sight of land these ANZAC troops saw after leaving Australian shores and some of them never returned. We should hold a service (here) at the first light of dawn each ANZAC Day to commemorate them."
That is on ANZAC Day 1923 he came to hold the first Commemorative Dawn Service.
As the sun was rising, a man in a small dinghy cast a wreath into King George Sound while White, with a band of about 20 men gathered around him on the summit of nearby Mount Clarence, silently watched the wreath floating out to sea. He then quietly recited the words: "As the sun rises and goeth down, we will remember them". All present were deeply moved and news of the Ceremony soon spread throughout the country; and the various Returned Service Communities Australia wide emulated the Ceremony.
Eventually, White was transferred from Albany to serve other congregations, the first in South Australia, then Broken Hill where he built a church, then later at Forbes NSW. In his retirement from parish life, he moved to Herberton where he became Chaplain of an Anglican convent. However, soon after his arrival (on September 26, 1954) he died, to be buried so modestly and anonymously as "A Priest".
White's memory is honoured by a stained glass window in the all Soul's Church at Wirrinya, a small farming community near Forbes NSW. Members of the parish have built the church with their own hands and have put up what they refer to as "The Dawn Service Window", as their tribute to White's service to Australia.
Last Post
The History of the Last Post
The Last Post is one of a number of bugle calls in military tradition which mark the phases of the day. Where "Reveille" signaled the start of a soldier's day, the "Last Post" signaled its end. It is believed originally to have been part of a more elaborate routine, known in the British Army as "tattoo", that had its origins in the 17th century. During the evening, a duty officer had to do the rounds of his unit's position, checking that the sentry posts were manned and rounding up the off-duty soldiers and packing them off to their beds or billets. He would be accompanied by one or more musicians. The "first post" was sounded when the duty officer started his rounds and, as the party proceeded from post to post, a drum was played. The drum beats told off-duty soldiers it was time to rest - if the soldiers were billeted in a town, the beats told them it was time to quit the pubs. "Tattoo" is a derivation of doe den tap toe, Dutch for "turn off the taps", a call which is said to have followed the drum beats in many a Dutch pub while English armies were campaigning through Holland and Flanders in the 1690s. (It is also from this routine that American practice of "taps" or "drum taps" originated.) Another bugle call was sounded when the party completed their rounds, when they reached the "last post": this signaled the night sentries were alert at their posts and gave one last warning to any soldiers still at large that it was time to retire for the evening. "Last Post" was incorporated into funeral and memorial services as a final farewell and symbolises that the duty of the dead is over and that they can rest in peace.
The words to the Last Post:-
Come home! Come home! The last post is sounding
for you to hear. All good soldiers know very well there
is nothing to fear while they do what is right, and forget
all the worries they have met in their duties through the
year. A soldier cannot always be great, but he can be a
gentleman and he can be a right good pal to his comrades in
his squad. So all you soldiers listen to this – Deal fair by all
and you'll never be amiss.
Be Brave! Be Just! Be Honest and True Men
Red Poppy
The History of the Red Poppy
On and around 11 November each year, the RSL sells millions of red cloth poppies for Australians to pin on their lapels. Proceeds go to the RSL welfare work. Why a red poppy?
Colonel John McCrae, who was Professor of Medicine at McGill University in Canada before WW1 (joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto), first described the red poppy, the Flanders' poppy, as the flower of remembrance.
Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the Boer War as a gunner, but went to France in WW1 as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent.
It was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and MAJ John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime. As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, MAJ McCrae, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.
It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. MAJ McCrae later wrote of it:
"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days .... Seventeen days of Hades!
At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done "(1).
One death particularly affected MAJ McCrae. A young friend and former student, LT Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May. LT Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.
The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote in pencil on a page from his despatch book a poem that has come to be known as "Flanders' Field" which described the poppies that marked the graves of soldiers killed fighting for their country. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry. In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook (2).
A young soldier watched him write it (written May 3, 1915 after the battle at Ypres). Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave." When he finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:
The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. The word blow was not used in the first line though it was used later when the poem later appeared in Punch. But it was used in the second last line. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene (3).
In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer -- either LTCOL Edward Morrison, the former Ottawa newspaper editor who commanded the 1st Brigade of artillery (4), or LTCOL J.M. Elder (5), depending on which source is consulted -- retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. "The Spectator," in London, rejected it, but "Punch" published it on 8 December 1915.
McCrae's "In Flanders' Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915.
In Flanders' Fields
In Flanders' Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.
COL McCrae was wounded in May 1918 and was taken to one of the big hospitals on the coast of France. On the third evening he was wheeled to the balcony of his room to look over the sea towards the cliffs of Dover. The verses were obviously in his mind, for he said to the doctor ""ell them, if ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep." That same night COL McCrae died.
Each Remembrance Day the British Legion lays a wreath on his grave – a tribute to a great man whose thoughts were always for others.
The wearing of the poppy to keep faith began when an American, Miss Moira Michael, read the poem "In Flanders Field" and was so greatly impressed that she decided always to wear a poppy to keep the faith. Miss Michael wrote a reply after reading "In Flanders Field" entitled "We Shall Keep the Faith":
Oh! You who sleep in Flanders' fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew;
We caught the torch you threw;
And holding high we kept
The faith with those who died.
We cherish, too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valour led.
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders' Fields.
And now the torch and poppy red
Wear in honour of our dead
Fear not that ye have died for naught
We've learned the lesson that ye taught
In Flanders' Fields.
Miss Michael worked for the YMCA in America and on Saturday 9 November 1918 hosted a meeting of YMCA wartime secretaries from other countries. When several of the secretaries presented her with a small gift of money to thank her for her hospitality, she said she would spend it on poppies and told them the story of McCrae's poem and her decision to always wear a red poppy.
In England in 1919, the British Legion was formed to foster the interest of ex-servicemen and their dependants, and the late Field Marshal Earl Haig, the first Grand President, sought an emblem which would honour the dead and help the living. He adopted the Poppy as that emblem, and since then the Red Poppy has been accepted as the Emblem of Remembrance. The day chosen for the wearing of the emblems was 11 November, a Day of Remembrance to honour the dead of both World Wars, Korea, Malaya and Vietnam.
The League adopted the idea in 1921, announcing, "The Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia and other Returned Soldiers Organisations throughout the British Empire and Allied Countries have passed resolutions at their international conventions to recognise the Poppy of Flanders' Fields as the international memorial flower to be worn on the anniversary of Armistice Day.
‘In adopting the Poppy of Flanders' Fields as the Memorial Flower to be worn by all Returned Soldiers on the above mentioned day, we recognise that no emblem so well typifies the Fields whereon was fought the greatest war in the history of the world nor sanctifies so truly the last resting place of our brave dead who remain in France'.
‘The Returned Sailors and Soldiers of Australia join their comrades of the British Empire and Allied Countries in asking people of Australia to wear the poppy; firstly in memory of our sacred dead who rest in Flanders' Fields; secondly to keep alive the memories of the sacred cause for which they laid down their lives; and thirdly as a bond of esteem and affection between the soldiers of all Allied nations and in respect for France, our common battle ground.'
‘The little silk poppies which are to be worn on Armistice Day are an exact replica in size and colour of the Poppies that bloom in Flanders' Fields. These poppies have been made by the war orphans in the devastated regions of France and have been shipped to Australia this year for Armistice Day.'
The League bought one million poppies from France to sell on 11 November 1921 at one shilling each. Five pence per poppy was to go back to France towards a fund for the children of the devastated areas of France, with sixpence per poppy being retained by each State branch and one penny going to the national office. The League kept up this practice for several years, and of course kept the tradition of selling poppies to mark 11 November and raise money for welfare work, even when the poppies were no longer obtained from France. Poppies now sold in Australia are often made locally by League members themselves.
Although the Red Poppy of Flanders is a symbol of modern times, legend has it that the poppy goes back even to the time of the famous Mongol leader, Genghiz Khan, as the flower associated with human sacrifice. In the 12th and early 13th centuries, the Mongol Emperor led his warrior hordes on campaigns south to the conquest of India, and west to envelop Russia as far as the shores of the Black Sea.
The modern story of the poppy is, of course, no legend. It is a page of history to which many thousands still with us can testify.
Excerpt from "Welcome to Flanders' Fields - The Great Canadian Battle of the Great War :
Ypres, 1915", by Daniel G. Dancocks, McClelland and Stewart (Toronto, Canada), 1988.
pages 250, 251 – Epilogue
(1) Bassett, John. page 44, "John McCrae." Markham:Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1984.
(2) Public Archives Canada (Ottawa), now the National Archives of Canada, MG30 E209, biographical note by Gertrude Hickmore.
(3) Mathieson, William D. page 264. "My Grandfather's War." Toronto: Macmillan, 1981.
(4) Public Archives Canada (Ottawa), now the National Archives of Canada, MG30 EI33, volume 4, "Origin of `In Flanders' Fields.'"
(5) "Canadian Daily Record," 5/3/19
Remembrance Day
The History of Remembrance Day
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| Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance |
At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years continuous warfare. The allied armies had driven the German invaders back, having inflicted heavy defeats upon them over the preceding four months. In November the Germans called for an armistice (suspension of fighting) in order to secure a peace settlement. They accepted the allied terms of unconditional surrender.
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month attained a special significance in the post-war years. The moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front became universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the war. This first modern world conflict had brought about the mobilisation of over 70 million people and left between 9 and 13 million dead, perhaps as many as one-third of them with no known grave. The allied nations chose this day and time for the commemoration of their war dead.
On the first anniversary of the armistice, 11 November 1919, the two minutes' silence was instituted as part of the main commemorative ceremony at the new Cenotaph in London. The silence was proposed by an Australian journalist working in Fleet Street, Edward Honey. At about the same time, a South African statesman made a similar proposal to the British Cabinet, which endorsed it. King George V personally requested all the people of the British Empire to suspend normal activities for two minutes on the hour of the armistice "which stayed the world wide carnage of the four preceding years and marked the victory of Right and Freedom." The two minutes' silence was popularly adopted and it became a central feature of commemorations on Armistice Day.
On the second anniversary of the armistice, 11 November 1920, the commemoration was given added significance when it became a funeral, with the return of the remains of an Unknown Soldier from the battlefields of the Western Front. Unknown soldiers were interred with full military honours in Westminster Abbey in London and at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The entombment in London attracted over one million people within a week to pay their respects at the Unknown Soldier's tomb. Most other allied nations adopted the tradition of entombing unknown soldiers over the following decade.
In Australia on the 75th anniversary of the armistice, 11 November 1993, Remembrance Day ceremonies again became the focus of national attention. On that day the remains of an unknown Australian soldier, exhumed from a First World War military cemetery in France, were ceremonially entombed in the Australian War Memorial. Remembrance Day ceremonies were conducted simultaneously in towns and cities all over the country, culminating at the moment of burial at 11 am and coinciding with the traditional two minutes' silence. This ceremony, which touched a chord across the Australian nation, re-established Remembrance Day as a significant day of commemoration.
Four years later, in November 1997, the Governor-General, Sir William Deane, issued a proclamation formally declaring 11 November Remembrance Day and urging all Australians to observe one minute's silence at 11 am on 11 November each year to remember those who died or suffered for Australia's cause in all wars and armed conflicts.