bob10
28th April 2017, 08:35 AM
Written by Mike Colman, Courier Mail. Sent to me by a mate.
I ASK her if it was hot when she found Charlie. “Have you ever been to Charters Towers?” she says. Yeah. Stupid question.
It was in the high thirties and she’d been out in the paddock for hours. She only had one bottle of water and a stick she’d picked up off the ground to dig with. That, and a few house bricks and a couple of little Australian flags she’d thrown in the back of the car – just in case. All she had to go on was a list of names and numbers, and a rough idea of where he might be, which turned out to be wrong anyway.
“I wasn’t looking in the right place at first,” she says.
“I’d been there half a day, at least. I was digging away in the dirt, my stick was breaking. It was bloody hot. There was only one tree, and that was a long way off … ”
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/102.jpg
Suzanne Murdoch at the unmarked grave of WWI soldier Charlie Blackman. Picture: Cameron LairdFinally she pulled away a few tufts of grass and scraped away the dry red soil on the top of a stone plaque, just as she had scraped dozens of other stone plaques, many *broken and chipped by the slashers that come through every few months. One by one the numbers became *clearer. A one, a three and a six, then a two, and finally an eight … she finished brushing the stone off with her hand, looked down at her list, then back to the dusty plaque. It was like checking Lotto numbers. She’d won the jackpot.
There below her feet lay the remains of Lance Corporal Charles Tednee Blackman, serial number 2584A, B Company, 9th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, AIF. Buried and forgotten for 50 years. She stood there for a while, not really knowing what to do next, then went back to the car and got the bricks and the flags. She put the bricks around the grave, then placed a plastic flowerpot on top and stood the flags upright inside it. Then she sat down for a chat.
“Oh, Charlie,” Suzanne said, the tears starting to flow. “I’ve been looking for you a long time.”
Suzanne Murdoch, her daughter Carmen, sister Kaye and brother-in-law Chris Bull weren’t the only people searching for Charlie Blackman. Far from it. The story of the three Blackman brothers, Charles, Alfred and Thomas, all of whom fought in World War I, has fascinated *researchers since the surge of interest in the contribution made by indigenous soldiers in the Great War began in the 1970s. In fact, as “half-caste” Aborigines, and prodigious letter-writers, the Blackmans have for years been something of a “go-to” family for historians seeking examples of indigenous life and military service in the early 1900s.
Removed from their mother as children in 1902 under the Aboriginal Protection Act and placed in the settlement of Barambah – later renamed Cherbourg – 250km northwest of Brisbane, the three brothers volunteered to serve in the AIF in World War I on the front line in Flanders where Alfred, the eldest, was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele in October 1917. Charles and Thomas survived and at war’s end returned to Australia believing their military *service would improve their status in the eyes of the authorities. Instead, they both ended their days as “inmates”: Thomas back at Cherbourg and Charles in an asylum at Charters Towers.
“They are case studies,” says historian Philippa Scarlett, author of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Volunteers for the AIF: The indigenous Response to World War One.
“They encompass all elements of the Aboriginal experience of that time.” Scarlett, who has referred to the Blackman brothers in several of her published articles, is one of numerous researchers who have delved into some aspect of their lives, each adding a link in the chain that led all the way to that dusty paddock at Charters Towers. All have had their own motivation; most have never met each other, but all for their own purposes have helped uncover the story of this ordinary yet remarkable family.
Merv Hopton, 67, a semi-retired businessman from the Bundaberg suburb of Buxton, dabbles in historical research “to keep my mind active”. He first came across references to the Blackman family when researching pastoral “runs” or properties around Bundaberg. His investigations brought him into contact with Graham Jennings, a relative of the Blackmans who has carried out his own research on the family tree through oral history. Together they ascertained that Thomas Blackman Senior, the father of the three brothers, owned 100 acres (40 hectares) at Tiaro, a town on the Bruce Highway, 30km south of Maryborough and 130km from Hopton’s home in Bundaberg. Son of a white father and Aboriginal mother, he died from cancer in 1898 at the age of 48, leaving no will. Within a few years his wife Emily, an Aborigine, and their children were left destitute and living in a derelict house in Bundaberg.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/103.jpg
Thomas Blackman. Picture: Supplied“I’m of the opinion she got ripped off,” says Hopton, who has located a wealth of official documents relating to the family, including the report of Constable James Manning who was sent to check on Emily and the children on September 16, 1902.
“The above mentioned is residing in an old dilapidated building in Grafton St with her six children aged from 14 to 3 years,” it reads.
“This woman has been a resident of Bundaberg for about 12 months and has been trying to make a living for her children and self as a charwoman. She is in very poor circumstances. The house is almost devoid of furniture and bears the aspect of extreme poverty. The constable is of the opinion that this woman is not a fit and proper person to have charge of these children.”
Two days later, an application was approved at Bundaberg Police Court for “disposal” of the children, listed as Louisa, 14, Alfred, 11, Thomas, 10, Mary, 8, Charles, 5, and their half-brother Willie, 3, to Barambah. Established in 1900 on a former cattle station 250km northwest of Brisbane, Barambah was a government-run settlement at which Aboriginal children were separated from their parents and older relatives. The adults lived in camps away from the main administration buildings while the children, housed in dormitories, were taught to speak, read and write English in preparation for life as domestic servants or farm labourers for white property owners. As part of the “inmates’ ” assimilation with white culture, Barambah *entered cricket and rugby league teams in district comp*etitions. The settlement produced many outstanding *athletes, including rugby league star Frank “Bigshot” Fisher – grandfather of Olympic champion Cathy Freeman – and fast bowler Eddie Gilbert, who dismissed Don Bradman for a duck in 1931. It also provided 47 young indigenous men who joined up to fight in World War I. Their stories are *currently on display in an exhibition titled “The Boys From Barambah” at Cherbourg’s Ration Shed Museum.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/104.jpg
Private Alfred John Blackman, sitting second from left, with other soldiers. Picture: SuppliedThe first soldier from Barambah to enter the war, in fact one of the first Aborigines to enlist anywhere, was 19-year-old Charles Blackman, who joined up at Childers on August 18, 1915. At the time Charles was working as a labourer at Illoura, the property of Mr John “Jack” Salter at Biggenden, 340km northwest of Brisbane. While there, Charles became very close to Mr and Mrs Salter and their three children, William, Charles and Margaret. During his time in uniform, Charles wrote regularly to Mr Salter. The correspondence was kept by the family and in 2001 donated to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra by the Salters’ grandchildren. Now part of the Military History collection, the letters and postcards provide a fascinating and at times chilling insight into the life of an indigenous soldier in WWI.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/105.jpg
A letter from Charlie Blackman to his mother. Image: SuppliedThe first letter, addressed to “Dear friend Mr Salter”, was sent from Fraser’s Paddock, Enoggera, in Brisbane’s northwest, where he was training with the 6th Reinforcements of the 25th Battalion.
“Just a few lines to let you know how I am. I am doing all right. Sorry to say that I was very sick from the inoculation. I was off my feet for a few days. A fine young fellow died the other day from the same thing. The 9th Battalion left us last week. They left for Sydney. That’s where we will be going soon. There are a few thousand here now and there are a lot of different kinds of fun here. How are they all down that way? Are they all well? I hope so. How are the children? Are they all right, and how is Mrs Salter? I hope she is well. We had a very big day on the Exhibition Day in Brisbane. We were watching all the morning. The crowd in the streets … stretched nearly three miles. We couldn’t get around the Show for crowds and there were three bands playing. I think that is all to say this time. God bless you all. I’ll try and come and see you before I go off. Goodbye till we meet again by and by.”
A postcard to the children from “somewhere in France” follows in the New Year, before a letter that hints at the horrors of war that Charlie has experienced. In March 1916 he was transferred to B Company of the 9th Battalion, a battle-ravaged unit that had been the first force ashore during the Anzac landing at Gallipoli almost a year earlier. Days after he joined the battalion, it headed to France and the Western Front. The first major confrontation with the Germans was in July at the Battle of Pozieres in the Somme, of which the Australian War Memorial notes, “few came out of Pozieres without physical or mental scars”.
To the Salters, Charlie wrote: “Dear friends, I received your nice parcel which I thank you very much for. The scarf is very warm and acceptable. I only wish I could parcel *myself home now. I have been very lucky according to what I have been through. Pozieres was terrible but I’ll return.”
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/106.jpg
Army Form B103 for Thomas BlackmanFrom Pozieres, the 41st Battalion fought at Ypres before being entrenched opposite the Hindenburg Line, the 140km concrete, steel and barbed wire defensive line the Germans had built along the Western Front from Arras to Laffaux. By the end of the next year, Charlie had been to England on leave (“I had a glorious time there – people in England think the world of you and they take you all over the place and show you everything”), made a good mate named Frank and narrowly avoided capture.
“Frank and I was sleeping in the same dugout cooped up like sardines and the Prussian guard made a big attack and when they came over, what do you think happened? Well, the first dugout they came to was the one me and Frank was sleeping in but we were relieved about an hour before they came over. We went back to supports and if we weren’t relieved we would have been prisoners of war in Germany. They took a few of our fellows once but they made a miraculous escape and got back to us. This is not half of what I could tell you about the Battle in France. What a soldier don’t know is not worth knowing. We seen some sights of all kinds. So far we haven’t seen any better places than Australia. France is beautiful but it rains too much. You never see the sun here. One thing here is that clouds never need to thunder. The guns do all the thundering and the flashes they make is just like lightning. They make more noise than the thunderstorms in Australia. I would rather be in a thunderstorm than a battle.”
What Charlie didn’t know when he wrote that letter on October 29, 1917, was that his oldest brother Alfred had been killed three weeks earlier in the Third Battle of Ypres, a four-and-a-half-month-long campaign of skirmishes and battles that included the Battle of Passchendaele and cost an estimated 40,000 Australian casualties.
The two older Blackman brothers were working on properties around Childers, 325km north of Brisbane, *Alfred as a labourer and Thomas a stockman, when they joined up in late January 1917. Like Charlie, they were well thought of in the district and on January 26 a reception was held at the Queens Hotel to “bid them farewell”, as the Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay & Burnett Advertiser reported.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/107.jpg
Alfred John Blackman. Picture: Supplied“Mr Monty Parker occupied the chair, and there was a fair attendance. The chairman pointed out that there were three brothers – Charlie Blackman, who had volunteered a year ago, and now the other two brothers were going, and that the male members of the family would be doing their bit. He called on Mr Whitford to make a presentation, which that gentleman did, pointing out that another two stalwart natives of the district were going to the front animated with a desire to be found fighting for the flag. He trusted they would have the opportunity to distinguish themselves and maintain the Anzac fame and that we could have the pleasure of welcoming them home again on a safe return.
“The presentations were a tobacco pouch and Meerschaum Pipe, in case, to each. Mr Stirling, in proposing the toast to the health of the young men, said he hoped the exigencies of warfare would make the brotherhood of Australians all the stronger and better animated with one spirit and one aim. There was no doubt victory was ahead, but strenuous work was needed as the enemy had been long preparing and was themselves drilled and armed. It would only be by the execution of greater power that the end would be attained. The toast was duly honoured and each of the brothers acknowledged the compliment, thanking the donors for the presents and promising to do their bit when the time came. If they came home again they hoped to meet in Childers.”
Alfred and Thomas Blackman joined the 41st Battalion 7th Reinforcements and sailed out of Sydney Harbour on February 7, 1917 aboard HMAT Wiltshire. By July they had joined the main force of the battalion at Flanders and at dawn on October 4, 1917 were part of the British force preparing to attack German lines at Broonseinde Ridge, in what was the first engagement of the Battle of Passchendaele. The Australian troops were heavily shelled even before the order to attack was given, and nearly 1000 were wounded. Alfred Blackman was one of them, suffering shrapnel wounds to his neck. He was treated in the field by members of the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance and evacuated to the 7th Canadian General Hospital at Etaples, 27km south of Boulogne. He died there four days later and is buried at the Etaples Military Cemetery. He was 27 years old.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/108.jpg
Lance Corporal Charles Tednee Blackman, 9th Battalion. Picture: SuppliedWhen the Blackman brothers’ mother Emily died in Maryborough in 1928, aged 56, among her few belongings were Alfred’s WW1 victory medal, and a booklet about the Etaples Military Cemetery containing a photograph of his headstone, for which she had paid sixpence.
By the time Alfred and Thomas joined up, their younger brother Charles was already a hardened veteran. On *November 23, 1917, a week after being promoted to Lance Corporal, he wrote to Jack Salter during a spell away from the fighting: “The last time up in the line I killed five Germans. I did it because they held up their hands till we got about 10 yards off them and then the dirty brutes threw bombs at us. So that’s why we killed them. If they hadn’t thrown bombs at us we would have taken them prisoners and they would have been all right. This totals 10 for me since I’ve been in France. That’s a good haul for one man isn’t it? I have done my bit, I think. The next time up I’ll get some more and I’ll kill all I can.”
Over the next 10 months Charlie continued to write to the Salters about his experiences, about friends made and lost, and how lucky he was to still be alive. “Last time in we had some stiff fighting. My cobbers are away wounded. I were nearly going away wounded too but I am wonderfully lucky. I wish other soldiers were as lucky as me.”
In August 1918, Charlie’s luck ran out. During the Battle of Amiens, the start of the so-called Hundred Day Offensive that led to the end of the war, he was exposed to chem*ical gas and repatriated to England. As part of ongoing treatment that would continue for months, he convalesced at Greenhill House at Sutton Veny in Wiltshire. The stately home, donated to the war effort by the Walker Whisky family, was linked to the Sutton Veny Military Hospital, where before the end of the war 140 Australian soldiers and three nurses died either from wounds or the influenza pandemic. To this day, children from Sutton Veny Primary School have celebrated Anzac Day in honour of the 143 Australians buried in the church graveyard.
During his time at Sutton Veny and then back in France and Belgium, Charlie continued to write to the Salters, the self-described “lonely soldier” grateful for their letters and counting the days until his return: “You are the only person I get letters from. Mother never writes to me, or any of the others. I’m glad I’ve got someone like a Father and Mother to me. I wish I was returning to Australia today.
“I think this war is a nuisance. It’s keeping us away too long. I haven’t seen any place like Aussie in this world. We are all hoping to get back again. Every day you can hear dozens of fellows saying, I wish I was in Aussie now. The reply is, you’ve got a lot of mates, Digger.”
Charlie’s wish came true when he returned to Australia on June 5, 1919. He was medically discharged due to the *effects of his gassing on July 30. Thomas had returned and been discharged four months earlier.
For the two surviving Blackman brothers, civilian life would be tough, although as Merv Hopton says, “the same could be said for a lot of men who returned from the war, white and black”. Away from the structure of army life, where every move a soldier makes is documented and *recorded for posterity, it is not as easy to follow the path Charlie’s life took. Hopton has spent a great deal of time and money following a paper trail which, together with documents held by National Archives and the Australian War Memorial, gives a broad picture of Charlie’s later years.
It is believed he returned to Biggenden after the war and resumed his work at Illoura. An undated note in the Salter collection at the AWM suggests he moved on without *notice: ‘Don’t search for me because I have left for some *distance away. I will leave a word in Biggenden soon as I can’.
He is next heard of living around Tully, 200km north of Townsville. The AWM lists him as leaving Biggenden in the mid-1920s and working on a property at Feluga, near Tully, and there are records of him working on a council gang *building and repairing timber bridges. In February 1936, he wrote to the Officer-in-Charge, Victoria Barracks, Brisbane, requesting a copy of his discharge papers: “Please could you kindly let me have a copy of my discharge as I have lost mine and since people who give us preference on jobs usually ask for them I would be glad to have a copy of mine sent to me as soon as you can send it as delay might cost me a good job.” In a statutory declaration he said the discharge document had been lost “while in the shifting of camp from one part of the bush to another during the time I was employed by the Cardwell Shire Council”. Eight months later, he took a lease on a small plot of government land at Tully, as was a common practice for cane cutters working in the area at the time.
In October 1943, a public notice was placed in The Cairns Post newspaper advising that Charles Tednee Blackman intended to change his name by deed poll to Charles Thomas Graham, Thomas being the name of his father and Graham his mother’s Emily’s maiden name. The reason for Charlie’s name change remains a mystery.
“No one seems to know,” says Hopton. “He wasn’t hiding from anything or anyone. There is no mention of his name in any police records. He was clean in that regard. Emily Blackman raised three fine young men. She did everything she could to keep her family together, and that’s the tragedy of it.
“All we know about Charlie’s last days is that he ended up in Mossman Hall mental facility at Charters Towers. What triggered that we don’t know, but the feeling is the war was to blame. He suffered severely from shell shock.”
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/109.jpg
Etaples Military Cemetery in France contains 10,771 Commonwealth burials from the First World War. (Picture: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesThomas Blackman also had an unhappy end. In 2009, a box of long-lost documents belonging to anthropologist Caroline Tennant-Kelly, who had died in country NSW 20 years earlier, was discovered in the shed of an old friend. In the 1930s, Tennant-Kelly had studied the living conditions of Aborigines housed at Cherbourg. Among the notes and photographs found from that period was a letter written to her by Thomas Blackman on February 22, 1935:
“I’m writing to you referring to the treatment of half-caste soldiers. I’m a half-caste soldier myself. There were three of us went to the Great War out of my family. One was killed at war and two of us returned after the war was over. I always thought fighting for our King and country would make me a naturalised British subject and a man with freedom in the country but I have hardly had freedom since I *returned from the war. I have no justice at all. I don’t know if the King knows how his half-caste returned soldiers are treated in this country. I was brought to Cherbourg May 7th, 1934 and still find myself here. Is this the sort of freedom that I went to France and helped fight for? I say no. I want justice. I’m a man that is well liked wherever I worked. I was living at Maryborough and had my good home broken up by the Chief Protector of Aboriginals. It hurts me very much.
“I was locked up for seven days for being intoxicated and using bad language but it seems the Chief Protector wasn’t satisfied with me taking my punishment but places me under the Act and put me to a settlement like a dog. I was brought to this settlement and find the Chief Protector hasn’t got any accommodation for my wife. Another thing I find is that a half-caste soldier has got to get a permit from the Superintendent to go about the country. We helped to fight, same as white soldiers did. Think of all the half-caste soldiers that were killed at war. What thanks have the half-caste soldiers for going to war? We were good men at war but looked down on now the war is over.”
Thomas is believed to have remained “under protection” at Cherbourg until his death.
In early 2015, Merv Hopton obtained a copy of Charles Blackman’s death certificate, stating he had died at Mossman Hall Special Hospital, Charters Towers, from the effect of pneumonia on August 12, 1966. He was 65 years old and single, and had been unwell for four years. He was buried in the open grassed section of Charters Towers Cemetery.
In April 2015, Hopton visited Charters Towers library and spoke to historian Michael Brumby, telling him of the work he had done researching Charles Blackman and that he was buried in an unmarked grave at Charters Towers Cemetery. Brumby, 63, contributes a monthly historical *column in the local newspaper, T he Northern Miner, and wrote his next column about the indigenous WWI veteran buried somewhere at Charters Towers.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/04/110.jpg
Kaye and Chris Bull have also researched the life of Charlie Blackman. Picture: Liam KidstonAnd that is where the final link in the chain that led to Charlie Blackman began to be forged. “Suzanne read the story and she sent it to me,” says Kaye Bull, 61, who, along with her husband Chris, 71, an ex-career soldier, is a welfare officer at Airlie Beach RSL. “Maybe as an ex-nurse it’s the nurturing gene in me, but I just thought, this isn’t right. This fella fought for his country and he deserves a proper burial, so we starting searching.”
Looking for Charlie became a family affair. Suzanne’s daughter in Sydney, Carmen Schegg, 44, got to work on *ancestry.com. Kaye and Chris went through military records. While they were following a path well worn by the likes of Philippa Scarlett, Merv Hopton, Graham Jennings and Eric Law from the Boys From Barambah project, they got one step further than anyone else, including finding Charlie’s great niece, Sharon Blackman, in Ayr, in north Queensland.
The breakthrough came when they learnt of the name change and tracked down a grave number for Charles Graham, rather than Charles Blackman. Armed with the list of numbers sent to her by Kaye, and one bottle of water, a stick and some plastic flags, Suzanne, 65, finally found the lost Digger on July 15, 2016.
Kaye and Chris have received funding from the RSL to place a headstone over Charlie’s grave and consecrate it at a ceremony attended by relatives, Cherbourg residents and representatives of the military. It was a promise made by Suzanne as she sat talking to him that hot July day.
“I said to him, ‘I know who you are, Charlie. I know what you did and we are going to make sure you get the respect you so richly deserve’. Every night at the RSL clubs they say, ‘lest we forget’. Well, you were forgotten, Charlie Blackman, but we’re going to make sure you’re not forgotten any more.”
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.4 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.