HENRY OSCAR NELSON
Regimental number 728 (Australian Imperial Force)
March 1896 - 20 July 1916
The story of H NELSON, listed on the Aro Valley Memorial, was probably the most difficult to track down. Detailed searches of the army personnel records held by Archives New Zealand turned up nothing and the realisation grew that perhaps this soldier had enlisted out of New Zealand. A chance meeting with someone undertaking research for the Fromelles Association of Australia[1] suggested the possibility that the H Nelson we were seeking might have enlisted in Australia.
The battle of Fromelles initiated Australian troops to the Western Front. It was brief - begun on 19 July 1916 it finished the following day. The battle plan, widely regarded as woeful, was to use the 5th Australian Division, newly arrived in Europe less than one month earlier, in association with the British 61st Division, to create a diversion near the village of Fromelles to distract German attention from the Somme, 50 kms to the south. As much as the Australians were inexperienced, their opponents were skilled and highly trained Bavarian troops well used to fighting on the Western Front. Australian and British soldiers, attacking in daylight and over open ground, were mowed down by machine gun fire and the assault failed completely. The Australians suffered 5,553 casualties including 1,917 dead and 470 prisoners. The day of the battle is seen as the worst ever in Australian military history.
One of those killed on 20 July 1916 was 20-year old Private Henry Oscar Nelson, Regimental number 728, from New Zealand. He seems to be the same person as the H Nelson remembered on the memorial at the top end of Aro Street.
His father, Martin Nelson, was originally from neither New Zealand nor Australia. He had been born in 1857 in Gävleborg, a county on Sweden’s Baltic coast. Perhaps it was the association with the sea that led him to find work while still a youth as a seaman on the schooner Stranger. He was discharged from that vessel, with a record of very good conduct, when it tied up in Sydney in December 1869.
Martin arrived in New Zealand in about 1883; and in 1887 he married Elizabeth Jane McCRACKEN, a migrant from Ireland. Martin was then working as a labourer. The couple had a total of seven children over the next 16 years, although two died in infancy.[2] Their fifth child and fourth son, Henry Oscar, was born in March 1896.
In 1890 Martin applied for and was granted naturalisation.
The family lived in Wright Street in Newtown according to successive editions of Wises Post Office Directory throughout the 1890s but then moved to Mount Pleasant, Mitchelltown at the upper end of Wellington’s Aro valley, and it seems likely that Henry attended Mitchelltown School. He then found work as a wood machinist, following the path of his older brother Charles Henry. He also spent three years as a member of the New Zealand Cadet Force.
On 25 January 1915, the family boarded the Union Steam Ship Company’s SS Maheno and sailed to Australia, settling in the town of Ryde, north-west of Sydney.[3] Martin appeared in the Sands Street Directory for the first time in 1915. Henry found work again as a wood machinist but it seems that, harking back to his time as a cadet, he also shared the idea common to many young men at the time that enlisting as a soldier would open the way to a life of adventure.
Not deterred by stories that began emerging from the end of April 1915 about the disastrous military engagements in Gallipoli, Henry and his older brother Frederick went to an army recruiting office in July and enlisted. Henry took with him a brief letter signed by his mother:
The bearer my son Henry Oscar Nelson – I give him full consent to go to the Front, from his Mother
Elizabeth Nelson
July 17th 1915 Parkes Street Ryde
This letter, conveying parental consent, would have been needed for Henry to serve overseas because he was 19 years 4 months old and therefore under age.
Their applications succeeded and both brothers were assigned to serve with the 30th Battalion. Their cohort sailed from Australia later in the year and arrived at Suez in December 1915. After 6 months of training in Egypt and getting ready for fighting on the Western Front, they sailed from Alexandria to Marseilles, arriving on 23 June 1916, and travelled by train to northern France. Now part of the newly-formed 5th Division, the 30th Battalion went into action almost straight away. There was much against them: not just their inexperience but also the weather – persistent heavy rain had already postponed the attack for 3 days – and the commanding position of the Germans over the site. Australian General ‘Pompey’ Elliott had challenged the order for his soldiers to advance, but was overruled. As he had feared, the battle cost dearly for no gain at all.
We now know that Henry was killed on 20 July, and for a time was simply posted as ‘missing’. Frederick was injured on the same day with gunshot wounds to the thigh but was able to rejoin his unit in December 1916. Confusion about Henry’s fate persisted for several months, exacerbated by a photo of soldiers in a German prisoner of war camp in Stuttgart published in London’s Daily Telegraph on 2 February 1917, one of whom Frederick said looked remarkably like his brother Henry.
In March 1917, a note was added to Henry’s army record:
Identification Disc received from Germany. No particulars were afforded except that Soldier was deceased.
On 10 March, Henry’s mother was sent a letter by the Australian Red Cross Society to say that Henry’s name had appeared on a German Death List issued in the preceding November. It told her that such lists were compiled from discs gathered by the Germans from men who had been killed and that, according to their usual practice, after the discs were recovered, the bodies would have been buried close to where they fell.
Private Henry Nelson, 20, had become one of the many who died at Fromelles and whose bodies were buried in unmarked graves. He is, though, named on Panel 2 of the memorial at V.C. Corner Cemetery which records the names of all the Australian soldiers who were killed in the engagement at Fromelles and whose graves were not known.[4]
Henry’s father Martin died in the following year, on 11 April 1917, from what the coroner concluded were ‘accidental injuries (fall from a moving tram)’. He was 60 years old. His wife of 29 years survived for a further 17 years, dying in 1934.
The Aro Valley Memorial was erected for ‘Boys of the Mitchelltown School and district who served abroad in the Great War’. It lists Henry, as ‘H Nelson’, amongst the 19 who were killed. The memorial also includes Frederick, as ‘F Nelson’ with an asterisk beside his name to denote that he had been wounded, in the list of the further 90 men from the Mitchelltown area who had served. Although the Nelson brothers had left the area at the start of 1915, both were still remembered by the community amongst whom they spent most of their lives.
Researched by James Tait and Max Kerr; and written by Max Kerr
[1] The Fromelles Association is a group set up to forge relationships with organisations and people interested in the battle of Fromelles. https://fromellesremembered.wordpress.com
[2] Based on information provided by eldest son Charles, Martin’s death certificate records four children then living and three males and two females who had died. There is no New Zealand BDM record for the births of these two females.
[3] Very soon after this trip, the Maheno was pressed into service by the New Zealand government and converted into a hospital ship, mainly used to bring wounded soldiers back home.
[4] https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/721555/nelson,-henry-oscar/
Regimental number 728 (Australian Imperial Force)
March 1896 - 20 July 1916
The story of H NELSON, listed on the Aro Valley Memorial, was probably the most difficult to track down. Detailed searches of the army personnel records held by Archives New Zealand turned up nothing and the realisation grew that perhaps this soldier had enlisted out of New Zealand. A chance meeting with someone undertaking research for the Fromelles Association of Australia[1] suggested the possibility that the H Nelson we were seeking might have enlisted in Australia.
The battle of Fromelles initiated Australian troops to the Western Front. It was brief - begun on 19 July 1916 it finished the following day. The battle plan, widely regarded as woeful, was to use the 5th Australian Division, newly arrived in Europe less than one month earlier, in association with the British 61st Division, to create a diversion near the village of Fromelles to distract German attention from the Somme, 50 kms to the south. As much as the Australians were inexperienced, their opponents were skilled and highly trained Bavarian troops well used to fighting on the Western Front. Australian and British soldiers, attacking in daylight and over open ground, were mowed down by machine gun fire and the assault failed completely. The Australians suffered 5,553 casualties including 1,917 dead and 470 prisoners. The day of the battle is seen as the worst ever in Australian military history.
One of those killed on 20 July 1916 was 20-year old Private Henry Oscar Nelson, Regimental number 728, from New Zealand. He seems to be the same person as the H Nelson remembered on the memorial at the top end of Aro Street.
His father, Martin Nelson, was originally from neither New Zealand nor Australia. He had been born in 1857 in Gävleborg, a county on Sweden’s Baltic coast. Perhaps it was the association with the sea that led him to find work while still a youth as a seaman on the schooner Stranger. He was discharged from that vessel, with a record of very good conduct, when it tied up in Sydney in December 1869.
Martin arrived in New Zealand in about 1883; and in 1887 he married Elizabeth Jane McCRACKEN, a migrant from Ireland. Martin was then working as a labourer. The couple had a total of seven children over the next 16 years, although two died in infancy.[2] Their fifth child and fourth son, Henry Oscar, was born in March 1896.
In 1890 Martin applied for and was granted naturalisation.
The family lived in Wright Street in Newtown according to successive editions of Wises Post Office Directory throughout the 1890s but then moved to Mount Pleasant, Mitchelltown at the upper end of Wellington’s Aro valley, and it seems likely that Henry attended Mitchelltown School. He then found work as a wood machinist, following the path of his older brother Charles Henry. He also spent three years as a member of the New Zealand Cadet Force.
On 25 January 1915, the family boarded the Union Steam Ship Company’s SS Maheno and sailed to Australia, settling in the town of Ryde, north-west of Sydney.[3] Martin appeared in the Sands Street Directory for the first time in 1915. Henry found work again as a wood machinist but it seems that, harking back to his time as a cadet, he also shared the idea common to many young men at the time that enlisting as a soldier would open the way to a life of adventure.
Not deterred by stories that began emerging from the end of April 1915 about the disastrous military engagements in Gallipoli, Henry and his older brother Frederick went to an army recruiting office in July and enlisted. Henry took with him a brief letter signed by his mother:
The bearer my son Henry Oscar Nelson – I give him full consent to go to the Front, from his Mother
Elizabeth Nelson
July 17th 1915 Parkes Street Ryde
This letter, conveying parental consent, would have been needed for Henry to serve overseas because he was 19 years 4 months old and therefore under age.
Their applications succeeded and both brothers were assigned to serve with the 30th Battalion. Their cohort sailed from Australia later in the year and arrived at Suez in December 1915. After 6 months of training in Egypt and getting ready for fighting on the Western Front, they sailed from Alexandria to Marseilles, arriving on 23 June 1916, and travelled by train to northern France. Now part of the newly-formed 5th Division, the 30th Battalion went into action almost straight away. There was much against them: not just their inexperience but also the weather – persistent heavy rain had already postponed the attack for 3 days – and the commanding position of the Germans over the site. Australian General ‘Pompey’ Elliott had challenged the order for his soldiers to advance, but was overruled. As he had feared, the battle cost dearly for no gain at all.
We now know that Henry was killed on 20 July, and for a time was simply posted as ‘missing’. Frederick was injured on the same day with gunshot wounds to the thigh but was able to rejoin his unit in December 1916. Confusion about Henry’s fate persisted for several months, exacerbated by a photo of soldiers in a German prisoner of war camp in Stuttgart published in London’s Daily Telegraph on 2 February 1917, one of whom Frederick said looked remarkably like his brother Henry.
In March 1917, a note was added to Henry’s army record:
Identification Disc received from Germany. No particulars were afforded except that Soldier was deceased.
On 10 March, Henry’s mother was sent a letter by the Australian Red Cross Society to say that Henry’s name had appeared on a German Death List issued in the preceding November. It told her that such lists were compiled from discs gathered by the Germans from men who had been killed and that, according to their usual practice, after the discs were recovered, the bodies would have been buried close to where they fell.
Private Henry Nelson, 20, had become one of the many who died at Fromelles and whose bodies were buried in unmarked graves. He is, though, named on Panel 2 of the memorial at V.C. Corner Cemetery which records the names of all the Australian soldiers who were killed in the engagement at Fromelles and whose graves were not known.[4]
Henry’s father Martin died in the following year, on 11 April 1917, from what the coroner concluded were ‘accidental injuries (fall from a moving tram)’. He was 60 years old. His wife of 29 years survived for a further 17 years, dying in 1934.
The Aro Valley Memorial was erected for ‘Boys of the Mitchelltown School and district who served abroad in the Great War’. It lists Henry, as ‘H Nelson’, amongst the 19 who were killed. The memorial also includes Frederick, as ‘F Nelson’ with an asterisk beside his name to denote that he had been wounded, in the list of the further 90 men from the Mitchelltown area who had served. Although the Nelson brothers had left the area at the start of 1915, both were still remembered by the community amongst whom they spent most of their lives.
Researched by James Tait and Max Kerr; and written by Max Kerr
[1] The Fromelles Association is a group set up to forge relationships with organisations and people interested in the battle of Fromelles. https://fromellesremembered.wordpress.com
[2] Based on information provided by eldest son Charles, Martin’s death certificate records four children then living and three males and two females who had died. There is no New Zealand BDM record for the births of these two females.
[3] Very soon after this trip, the Maheno was pressed into service by the New Zealand government and converted into a hospital ship, mainly used to bring wounded soldiers back home.
[4] https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/721555/nelson,-henry-oscar/