Corporal Edgar “Ted” Millward – First World War

RSL Victoria remembers the sacrifice of Corporal Edgar “Ted” Millward who gave his life in service of his country during the First World War.

Ted was born in Bendigo in August 1896, one of two children born to Charles and Alice Millward.

His parents were well known identities in Bendigo, his father was a builder and his mother co-founded Girton College, dedicated to ensuring girls in the region received a comprehensive education to prepare them for university. She served as co-principal and following the death of co-founder, Marian Aherne, in 1897 she was sole principal for 28 years until her death from illness in 1911.

Ted’s elder sister, Marian, was a student at the school and already 20 when her mother died but Ted was only 15 years old and still attending Camberwell Grammar School in Melbourne.

Ted decided not to attend university and left school at 17 to take up a job as a Bank Clerk with the Union Bank. With the outbreak of war, he joined the Army in March 1915 at the age of 18.

After completing training at Broadmeadows and Egypt he was posted to the 24th Battalion and in arrived in Gallipoli on 30 August 1915, just after the disastrous final assaults of the ANZAC forces at Lone Pine and the Nek. Less than a month later, on 25 September 1915, he was shot and wounded in both legs and evacuated to Malta to recover. The injuries were not severe, and he returned to the front lines at Gallipoli two weeks later but was shot again, this time receiving more serious injuries, and was evacuated once more, this time to London where he was sent to the 3rd London General Hospital.

He remained in England throughout 1916, as Australia withdrew from Gallipoli, and his mates in the battalion were cut down in their thousands during fierce fighting at Pozieres on the Western Front of France.

With the original members of the battalion almost wiped out in 1916 he recovered from his injuries in early 1917 and was finally taken on strength again in February. He suffered a brief illness which kept him out of the fighting until he rejoined his unit in late April 1917 near Bullecourt on the Western Front, few of his friends still surviving from when he had left them in Gallipoli in 1915.

When he arrived, the Australian forces had just suffered badly in the First Battle of Bullecourt where they had suffered 3000 casualties. Tanks had broken down or failed to arrive, and the advancing soldiers ran directly into heavy machine gun fire with little support. The Australians had gained little advantage and moved the front line forward only very slightly.

On 3 May 1917 Australian and British troops, including Corporal Edgar “Ted” Millward, attacked the German position at Bullecourt again in the Second Battle of Bullecourt. This time, despite appalling losses, the Australians managed to enter the German’s trenches and hold on in the face of a week-long counterattack and bombardment from the enemy.

In the Second Battle of Bullecourt the Australian casualties came to more than 7000. One part of this terrible statistic was Ted Millward, the 21-year-old son of a Bendigo headmistress and builder who was too young to have had a wife and family of his own.

Officially missing a fellow soldier told an enquiry of Ted’s last moments. He said;

“I knew Corporal Millward well…. We came over from Australian together – I think he was a man of independent means…. I was next to him when he was killed on the morning of the 3rd of May during the attack on Bullecourt. He was shot in the stomach by machine gunfire, and I laid him in a shell hole. We retained the ground we had taken. I am not able to say if his body was found.”

His friend had to abandon him during the battle, and his body was ultimately lost to the mud of the Western Front as the war rolled on. He has no known grave.

He had been fortunate to survive the carnage at Gallipoli but died within weeks of his return to the front line in his third year of service in the war. His father, who now lived in St. Kilda, was granted a pension of 2 pound per fortnight to compensate for the loss of his son. His sister, Marian, received nothing.

Ted’s personal effects were returned to his father. They consisted of a wallet, letters from home, 2 pocketbooks, a razor and a broken penholder.

Ted’s father died in 1935, and his sister worked as a nurse. She never married or had children and died in 1950 aged 58.

RSL Victoria pays tribute to Corporal Millward, his family and all those who have sacrificed in the service of their country.

Lest we forget.