Gordon William Horace Lancaster
Rank:
Acting Corporal
Serial No:
Serial No. 3584
Regiment:
30th Battalion
Suburb:
Wedderburn
Gordon William Horace Lancaster - Information
The Lancaster family had moved from Victoria to Campbelltown in the 1890s. Gordon, who was referred to as Horace, was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1892 and later attended school in Wedderburn with his younger brother, Victor, and sister, Edith. However, after Horace’s father passed away, his mother Martha relocated the family to the city and remarried a Mr Dunn. They settled on Bristol on Salisbury St in Camperdown where Horace and his siblings, soon welcomed a step-brother, Leonard Charles, to the family. When war broke out, Horace was working as a porter before he and his brother, Victor, decided to join the AIF together. They enlisted in Newcastle on the 11th of September 1915, Horace was just 23. Both Horace and Victor were designated to the 4th Reinforcements, 30th Battalion, with Horace becoming Acting Corporal. Unluckily, during training Horace became sick with relapsing pneumonia and was taken to an Isolation Camp in February 1916. At the time, Victor received his travel orders. By the beginning of April, Horace had recovered and returned to training. On the 7th of April, Horace was promoted to Corporal, now posted to the 8th Reinforcements, 30th Battalion at Kiama. He was then shipped out for war service on the HMAT Ballarat, departing Sydney on the 5th of August 1916.
Horace arrived in England in September and was marched into the 8th Training Battalion at Hurdcott. Unfortunately, during training, Horace contracted the mumps. He was treated at Fovant Hospital, and returned to duty in January 1917. The following month, he was sent to the trenches in France. However, while en route to his unit in April, he was taken back to England sick. In May, he was admitted to the 2nd South General Hospital in Bristol with a gastric ulcer. A medical examination concluded that Horace’s poor health made him unfit for active service. As a result, he was ordered back home to Australia on the 16th of July 1917. After he was discharged, he returned to his family in Camperdown.