Lumen Summer 2015 - Flipbook - Page 7
Roseworthy takes up the Þght
Students and graduates from
Roseworthy College made a huge
contribution to the Great War with
enlistment figures more than double
the national average.
By the end of the war 228 had volunteered
out of a total student body of 300. That’s
an enlistment rate
of about 84 per
cent compared to
the 38.7 per cent
national figure.
Tragically, 39 of
the Roseworthy
soldiers died
– which was
also above the
national average.
Since 2012 Richard Turnbull,
former President of the
Roseworthy Old Collegians
Association (ROCA), has
been leading a research
project into the College’s
involvement with the aim of
producing short biographies
on all 228 Roseworthians. It’s the
next stage in a project started nearly
100 years ago when ROCA compiled
the names of the students for a large
wooden honour roll which still hangs in
the foyer of Roseworthy Hall.
Just before the end of the war the Tassie
family also paid tribute to the College
war effort. They paid for a memorial
library to be built at Roseworthy in
honour of their son John who was
killed on Anzac Day 1918 in
the battle for Villers-Bretonneux. After
the Second World War ROCA raised
funds for a memorial chapel which
opened in 1957 with a bronze and brass
honour roll listing all collegians enlisted
during the Boer War and two world wars.
Left: John Tassie
Above: Roseworthy Agricultural College students 191112, many of this group were casualties of the war
Arise! Australia’s Army!
University of Adelaide arts student Ellie Wemyss used
her skills as a poet and songwriter to whip up patriotic
support and national pride in Australia.
Ellie had been so short-sighted
that her parents thought her
impossible to educate until she
began to teach herself to read
from the large letters on a metal
travelling trunk. She went on to
spend many years at university
and graduated with a BA in
1921 and an MA in 1924.
Among her works during the First
World War was a song titled Arise!
Australia’s Army! with music by
F. Myers-Shearer:
Arise! Australia’s Army!
In all your youthful might
Train to defend your country,
And fit yourselves to fight
For home, and for your dear ones,
And for Australia great
Ye citizens of Empire,
Of Commonwealth, and State!
Arise! Australia’s Army!
And fit yourselves to fight
For God, for home and country
For freedom, truth and right!
The song was published on
postcards in 1912, with part
proceeds from their sale
going to Red Cross and
patriotic funds.
In the same year Ellie
founded the Girl Guides
movement in South
Australia and was
honorary state secretary
during World War I.
Left: Ellie Wemyss,
seated on ground, centre.
(source: State Library of
South Australia B68445)
Memorial to the fallen
The University launched a
community-wide appeal for funds to
complete a Student Union complex
incorporating a Memorial Cloisters
in 1927 following a government
grant of a strip of land and Sir
Josiah Symon’s 10,000 pound gift
for a Women’s Union Building.
Members of the University community
subscribed generously and the Cloisters
was soon constructed as a permanent
monument together with the sombre
Roll of Honour in the Mitchell
Building to those who were
killed in the First World War.
Above: architect’s sketch of the Cloisters
|e University of Adelaide | Alumni Magazine 5
