This is the continuation of the complete list of all those, with an association to the Shire of Alberton, who enlisted. It covers 130 men with surnames M to O. This takes the overall total to this point to 565.
As for the previous post several characteristics stand out:
- the number of siblings
- the number of immigrant (UK) workers
- the extent of mobility featured across the overall cohort
The case of John Ledger illustrates just how complex the issue of identifying individuals can be. Someone who identified himself as Francis George Moore was issued with a railway warrant in Yarram in late August 1915. At the time he said he was 19 yo and that his parents were deceased. He was a farm labourer in the district.
The enlistment was completed in Melbourne and Moore served overseas right through the War until he was discharged at the end of August 1919. One month before his discharge, Moore signed a statutory declaration stating that his real name was John Ledger and that he had enlisted under F G Moore because at the time he was under 18 yo.
With only these details, it is not possible to track John Ledger in Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria. However it is possible that the person was Harold John Ledger, born 1899. If it was this person then he would have been about 16 yo when he enlisted.
As always, if there are issues with any of the names or details I would appreciate hearing from you:
pcashen@bigpond.net.au
Shire at War 
Hi Phil, I’ve been thinking about whether there will be some interesting statistical information that can be derived from these lists when they’re finished. It should be possible to compare percentage of those born in Britain with the 1911 census numbers, I think. I think I’ve seen other attempts to estimate that, but you should end up with an almost complete set of numbers for the region. Age distributions at enlistment might also be interesting for the complete list. Will you publish tables that have the numerical data for that kind of analysis? Ken
Ken
Yes, I’ll definitely provide some statistical analysis when I’ve finished. Ideally, I would love to create some sort of relational data base so that people could interrogate the very extensive data set that sits behind all this research. But I think that’s a technical step too far for this level of blog.
Phil