Daniel Patrick McCARTHY
Regimental number 6/303
15 August 1885 – 2 March 1917
Daniel McCarthy’s father, Eugene, was baptised in the Passage West Catholic church in County Cork, Ireland, on 3 September 1848. His mother Annie (née McKenzie) was probably also born in Ireland. Both parents migrated to New Zealand before they married in St Patrick’s church in Oamaru on 13 June 1874. Daniel, born in 1885, was the couple’s sixth child and he was followed by two others. Daniel aside, the last three died young: at three days, nine years, and twelve months.
When Daniel was a boy, his family lived first in Oamaru, the town of his birth, and then in Outram, followed by Hindon, the latter being a tiny rural hamlet. 24 kilometres northwest of Dunedin close to the edge of the Strath Taieri. The Taieri Gorge Railway runs through Hindon on its way between Dunedin and Middlemarch. Daniel’s father was a labourer and it is probable that these moves were triggered by his chasing work opportunities as the railway line was being built.
By no later than 1897, however, and possibly earlier, the family moved to Wellington where schooling for the children alternated between Marist schools in Newtown and Boulcott Street and state schools in Kilbirnie and Mitchelltown. It is clear from electoral rolls, however, that by 1900 the McCarthy family had settled in Holloway Road, Mitchelltown. Daniel’s mother Annie died there when she was 40, in 1901, but the rest of the family continued to live there for several years.
Like his father, after Daniel left school he found work as a labourer. At first, he remained in Wellington, but sometime after 1911 – perhaps after his father’s death in April 1912, at the age of 64 – Daniel took up farm work a short distance from Blenheim in Marlborough. His employer, Ernest Rose, was descended from a pioneering settler family whose father had established Kegworth Farm “comprising in all 379 acres of the richest agricultural land in the Wairau. His land grows cereals, root crops, etc., to perfection, and over 5000 bushels of peas were produced in 1904.” (http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc05Cycl-t1-body1-d2-d22-d38.html)
Kegworth was the name of the farm where Ernest Rose had been born in Nottinghamshire. While Daniel worked on the farm, he boarded in town at New Century House, which according to its advertising offered ‘good beds and good table’ for 20 to 30 boarders. It was from there that he travelled to Nelson to enlist at the outset of war in August 1914.
His attestation to serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force was taken on 15 August 1914, the day he turned 29. His build would have seemed slight; he was five feet five inches tall and weighed less than 8½ stone (under 54 kilograms). He had what was described as a medium complexion, brown hair and brown eyes.
He must have travelled almost immediately to Addington to join the Canterbury Infantry Battalion, along with the rest of the Nelson contingent which arrived in camp on 16 August. Training began as soon as the troops arrived and continued through most of September until they left for Lyttelton to board their ship heading in the first instance for Wellington. There was a delay waiting for suitable escort vessels to arrive, but the fleet carrying the NZ Expeditionary Force left Wellington harbour on the morning of 16 October 1914 bound in the first instance for Australia. In the company of vessels carrying Australian troops, the convoy then made its way via Colombo, in Ceylon, to landfall at Alexandria, Egypt, on 3 December.
Before he left Wellington, Daniel completed his last will and testament, leaving his estate to one of his older brothers, Hugh.
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force established camp at Zeitun, just outside Cairo. The days were filled with training: some of that was drill but variety came with rifle practice, long route marches, night work and entrenching practice. News on 25 January 1915 of a Turkish advance on the Suez Canal gave the New Zealanders their first chance, working with soldiers from India, to put this training into practice. The three-day engagement was rated a success.
More field practice and route marches followed until early April when the New Zealand and Australian troops left Alexandria, sailing for the island of Lemnos and preparations for the landing at Gallipoli. The Australians led the way, leaving Lemnos on 24 April, with the first of the New Zealand troops following early the next morning. On landing, they met fierce fighting and ‘a great deal of confusion’ in the words of the History of the Canterbury Regiment[1]. Plans were made and altered until, as part of a wider attack, the New Zealand Brigade was assigned the objective to capture the hill known as Baby 700. The attempt was not successful. In early May the Canterbury Battalion, with others, was then transferred to Cape Helles and took part in the fighting around the village of Krithia. Fighting was again fierce and progress slow. The battalion was in trenches for several days, being relieved during the night of 11/12 May. The New Zealand Brigade as a whole was now in reserve and not called on to fight again on the southern part of the peninsula. Even in reserve, however, troops were still at risk, and on 14 May, Daniel received a gun-shot wound. It had been less than three weeks since his Battalion had left Lemnos.
He was treated initially on the hospital ship Braemar Castle before being transferred to St George’s Hospital in Malta where he remained until mid-June. A period of convalescence followed but he was able to re-join the New Zealand Brigade in Gallipoli until 28 August 1915. He had been back in the field only a few days when he suffered an attack of enteritis and on 5 September was sent initially to a casualty clearing station and then back to St George’s Hospital in Malta. Disease was rife among the troops and responsible for many casualties, although most of those affected recovered. That was not Daniel’s lot.
Still on Malta, he was transferred to the Cottonera Military Hospital which was allocated the more serious cases. He remained there until January 1916 when, following a bout of ‘acute mania’ according to the casualty form on his personnel file, he was transferred to the specialist hospital at Abbassia, Egypt. The decision was then taken that he should be repatriated. Daniel embarked for New Zealand on the hospital ship Maheno on 6 March 1916 and his discharge from the Army was finalised. On the day he arrived in Wellington, 13 April, he was admitted to the Porirua Mental Asylum suffering from severe psychiatric illness. He did not recover. Following his death on 2 March 1917, the coroner found that Daniel had died ‘from exhaustion following acute mania’.
Daniel was buried in Karori Cemetery’s Catholic section, in the grave already containing his mother Annie, his father Eugene, and his sister Alice who had died in 1914. The grave has a soldier’s headstone to commemorate his war service. Other family members were subsequently interred in the same grave.
In addition to being named on the Aro Valley memorial, Daniel’s name is also on the plaque in the Marlborough War Memorial Clock Tower in Seymour Square, Blenheim which was completed in 1928, and is Marlborough’s principal memorial to locals who died in the First World War.
Research conducted by Max Kerr
[1] The History of the Canterbury Regiment, NZEF 1914 – 1918, David Fergusson, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1921, page 28.
Regimental number 6/303
15 August 1885 – 2 March 1917
Daniel McCarthy’s father, Eugene, was baptised in the Passage West Catholic church in County Cork, Ireland, on 3 September 1848. His mother Annie (née McKenzie) was probably also born in Ireland. Both parents migrated to New Zealand before they married in St Patrick’s church in Oamaru on 13 June 1874. Daniel, born in 1885, was the couple’s sixth child and he was followed by two others. Daniel aside, the last three died young: at three days, nine years, and twelve months.
When Daniel was a boy, his family lived first in Oamaru, the town of his birth, and then in Outram, followed by Hindon, the latter being a tiny rural hamlet. 24 kilometres northwest of Dunedin close to the edge of the Strath Taieri. The Taieri Gorge Railway runs through Hindon on its way between Dunedin and Middlemarch. Daniel’s father was a labourer and it is probable that these moves were triggered by his chasing work opportunities as the railway line was being built.
By no later than 1897, however, and possibly earlier, the family moved to Wellington where schooling for the children alternated between Marist schools in Newtown and Boulcott Street and state schools in Kilbirnie and Mitchelltown. It is clear from electoral rolls, however, that by 1900 the McCarthy family had settled in Holloway Road, Mitchelltown. Daniel’s mother Annie died there when she was 40, in 1901, but the rest of the family continued to live there for several years.
Like his father, after Daniel left school he found work as a labourer. At first, he remained in Wellington, but sometime after 1911 – perhaps after his father’s death in April 1912, at the age of 64 – Daniel took up farm work a short distance from Blenheim in Marlborough. His employer, Ernest Rose, was descended from a pioneering settler family whose father had established Kegworth Farm “comprising in all 379 acres of the richest agricultural land in the Wairau. His land grows cereals, root crops, etc., to perfection, and over 5000 bushels of peas were produced in 1904.” (http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cyc05Cycl-t1-body1-d2-d22-d38.html)
Kegworth was the name of the farm where Ernest Rose had been born in Nottinghamshire. While Daniel worked on the farm, he boarded in town at New Century House, which according to its advertising offered ‘good beds and good table’ for 20 to 30 boarders. It was from there that he travelled to Nelson to enlist at the outset of war in August 1914.
His attestation to serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force was taken on 15 August 1914, the day he turned 29. His build would have seemed slight; he was five feet five inches tall and weighed less than 8½ stone (under 54 kilograms). He had what was described as a medium complexion, brown hair and brown eyes.
He must have travelled almost immediately to Addington to join the Canterbury Infantry Battalion, along with the rest of the Nelson contingent which arrived in camp on 16 August. Training began as soon as the troops arrived and continued through most of September until they left for Lyttelton to board their ship heading in the first instance for Wellington. There was a delay waiting for suitable escort vessels to arrive, but the fleet carrying the NZ Expeditionary Force left Wellington harbour on the morning of 16 October 1914 bound in the first instance for Australia. In the company of vessels carrying Australian troops, the convoy then made its way via Colombo, in Ceylon, to landfall at Alexandria, Egypt, on 3 December.
Before he left Wellington, Daniel completed his last will and testament, leaving his estate to one of his older brothers, Hugh.
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force established camp at Zeitun, just outside Cairo. The days were filled with training: some of that was drill but variety came with rifle practice, long route marches, night work and entrenching practice. News on 25 January 1915 of a Turkish advance on the Suez Canal gave the New Zealanders their first chance, working with soldiers from India, to put this training into practice. The three-day engagement was rated a success.
More field practice and route marches followed until early April when the New Zealand and Australian troops left Alexandria, sailing for the island of Lemnos and preparations for the landing at Gallipoli. The Australians led the way, leaving Lemnos on 24 April, with the first of the New Zealand troops following early the next morning. On landing, they met fierce fighting and ‘a great deal of confusion’ in the words of the History of the Canterbury Regiment[1]. Plans were made and altered until, as part of a wider attack, the New Zealand Brigade was assigned the objective to capture the hill known as Baby 700. The attempt was not successful. In early May the Canterbury Battalion, with others, was then transferred to Cape Helles and took part in the fighting around the village of Krithia. Fighting was again fierce and progress slow. The battalion was in trenches for several days, being relieved during the night of 11/12 May. The New Zealand Brigade as a whole was now in reserve and not called on to fight again on the southern part of the peninsula. Even in reserve, however, troops were still at risk, and on 14 May, Daniel received a gun-shot wound. It had been less than three weeks since his Battalion had left Lemnos.
He was treated initially on the hospital ship Braemar Castle before being transferred to St George’s Hospital in Malta where he remained until mid-June. A period of convalescence followed but he was able to re-join the New Zealand Brigade in Gallipoli until 28 August 1915. He had been back in the field only a few days when he suffered an attack of enteritis and on 5 September was sent initially to a casualty clearing station and then back to St George’s Hospital in Malta. Disease was rife among the troops and responsible for many casualties, although most of those affected recovered. That was not Daniel’s lot.
Still on Malta, he was transferred to the Cottonera Military Hospital which was allocated the more serious cases. He remained there until January 1916 when, following a bout of ‘acute mania’ according to the casualty form on his personnel file, he was transferred to the specialist hospital at Abbassia, Egypt. The decision was then taken that he should be repatriated. Daniel embarked for New Zealand on the hospital ship Maheno on 6 March 1916 and his discharge from the Army was finalised. On the day he arrived in Wellington, 13 April, he was admitted to the Porirua Mental Asylum suffering from severe psychiatric illness. He did not recover. Following his death on 2 March 1917, the coroner found that Daniel had died ‘from exhaustion following acute mania’.
Daniel was buried in Karori Cemetery’s Catholic section, in the grave already containing his mother Annie, his father Eugene, and his sister Alice who had died in 1914. The grave has a soldier’s headstone to commemorate his war service. Other family members were subsequently interred in the same grave.
In addition to being named on the Aro Valley memorial, Daniel’s name is also on the plaque in the Marlborough War Memorial Clock Tower in Seymour Square, Blenheim which was completed in 1928, and is Marlborough’s principal memorial to locals who died in the First World War.
Research conducted by Max Kerr
[1] The History of the Canterbury Regiment, NZEF 1914 – 1918, David Fergusson, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1921, page 28.