St John's Cathedral, Brisbane and the Anzac Legend

Volunteering their skill sets to the Army, these clerics in military ‘clobber’ sought to provide support and comfort to Australian servicemen in the face of wounds, grief, despair and suffering. The chaplains helped organise entertainments, games and sporting events, as well as holding prayer meetings and services and providing emotional support and spiritual counselling to individual soldiers. More sombrely, they helped as stretcher-bearers in carrying the wounded to safety, conducting funerals for the dead, recording the details of those who had died and writing letters to their relatives at home. Chaplains from many denominations still serve in the Australian Defence Force to this day. During the First World War, 22 clergy from the Brisbane Anglican Diocese served as chaplains in the First AIF. One of these was the Reverend Alexander Maxwell (1856-1933). At the time of his enlistment he had been the parish priest at Sandgate, on Brisbane’s northern Bayside. He enlisted on 8 February 1915 as a chaplain, with the honorary rank of Captain, attached to the 2nd Light Horse Brigade, whose recruits came mainly from Queensland and northern New South Wales. Maxwell was 59 years old when he enlisted which was highly unusual, as the age limit for chaplains engaged for “continuous service” was 48, and 52 for “voyage only”. He must have obtained special exemption to enlist given his age, which was almost twice that of many other padres. He first sailed on the Australian- leased troopship Star of England (A15) to Camp Mena near Cairo in Egypt, which was the staging-post for Australian troops en route to Gallipoli. Maxwell then spent much of the Gallipoli campaign as a hospital ship chaplain, assisting in the repatriation of some of the more than 5000 sick, wounded and dying Anzacs who were cared for on just that one ship alone.

At one point, over a three-day period during the bloody August offensives, Maxwell buried 67 men at sea. Sunday 19 December, however, found Maxwell at Anzac Cove where he had gone ashore from his hospital ship which was anchored off the beach. The morning dawned fine but cold. It was the last full day of the evacuation, and all remaining Australian and New Zealand troops would be withdrawn by 4.10am the following day, bound for Egypt. The 10,000 soldiers still left at Anzac Cove on the 19th spent part of the day destroying stores and items of potential use to the Turks. It was a tense time for the soldiers—there was considerable anxiety lest the Turkish defenders realise that most of the Anzacs had withdrawn and only a small number remained, making them even more vulnerable to attack.

Two Australian soldiers in slouch hats in their trench posing for the camera at Anzac Cove in 1915.

State Library of Queensland

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