Jack Raymond DICK
Year of Birth: 1894
Place of Birth: Longreach, Queensland, Australia
Date of Enlistment: 9 December 1915
Date and Place of Embarkation: 16 May 1916 at Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Ship: HMAT A64 Demosthenes
Rank: Private
Unit(s): 41st Battalion
Regimental Number: 630
Died: 13 March 1925
Jack Raymond Dick “Ray” was born on 19 October 1894 in Longreach, Queensland, the second of 7 children and eldest son of John R Dick and his wife Ghyn (nee Thompson).
His father was noted in the 1903 and 1913 Queensland Electoral Rolls as a photographer in Longreach then Kuranda. He and his wife must have separated by 1915 as Ray named his mother, Gyhn, as his next of kin when he enlisted in 1915 and his father was no longer on the electoral roll with the family.
Jack Raymond Dick enlisted in the A.I.F. on 9 December 1915 after having previously joined the Kennedy Regiment and embarked on the Kanowna for New Guinea earlier in the year. The ship returned to Townsville after the crew refused to proceed past Thursday Island due to the lack of fresh water, the reason the soldiers were called the “Dirty 500”. On return to Cairns, he enlisted in the A.I.F., passed the medical examination in Cairns and proceeded to Enoggera to join the 41st Battalion.
He was 21 years 2 months of age, 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed 132 pounds with a fair complexion, grey eyes and brown hair. His religion was Church of England.
He embarked from Sydney on the HMAT Demosthenes on 16 May 1916 and proceeded overseas to Frances via Southampton England on 24 November that year.
Over the next 18 months of service in France he was admitted to hospital sick with influenza or trench fever at least 5 times, including being repatriated to England.
Between all the episodes of illness, his bravery on 8 August 1918 resulted in the awarding of the Military Medal.
Private Ray Dick MM returned to Australia on the Margha on 19 January 1919 again suffering from Trench Fever. He returned home to farming at Kuranda where his mother still lived and in April 1921, he married Elizabeth Helen Taffs, the daughter of the Church of England clergyman in Mossman, Queensland. Their two sons were born in 1922 and 1924 and in 1925 they were living on a property at Gadgarra, Peeramon on the Atherton Tableland.
No doubt affected by the ill health from his war service, Ray Dick died on 13 March 1925, aged 31, and is buried in the Atherton Pioneer Cemetery.
Online Resources
NAA: B2455, (DICK J.R.) National Archives of Australia
National Library of Australia: Trove Digitised Newspapers
Queensland Registrar of Births Deaths & Marriages
Ancestry.com.au: Queensland Electoral Rolls
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