Australia in the First World War, 1914-1918


 

COMPANY RECORDS

Australian companies contributed to the war effort through manufacturing and shipping for troops and supplies. Many maintained Rolls of Honour to commemorate staff who served in the armed forces. After the war pastoral companies were involved in soldier settlement schemes to provide farms for veterans.

 

Australian Agricultural Company

Monthly despatches between the Company office in New South Wales and the Court of Directors in London relating to wartime trading, 1914-1919 (78/1/87-89; 78/3/24-25; 126/1-3)

 

British-Australian Wool Realisation Association (BAWRA), 1921 (N75/400)

 

Wartime profits tax, 1914-1920 (131/17)

 

Closer settlement and resumption acts, sub-divisions and group settlements (ex-servicemen), 1901-1923 (161/260-1; 161/570)

 

War Service Land Settlement, Warrah Station, 1919-1926 (1/254-255)

 

War Service Homes Commission, Aug 1931 (128/10/12)

 

Posters, 1914-1918 (1/461)

 

Adelaide Steamship Company Limited

Staff Roll of Honour, 1914-1918 (N46/317)

 

Members of staff who returned from the First World War, 1919 (Z535/7)

 

Photograph of SS Grantala as a hospital ship, 1914 (N46/401)

 

Photographs of SS Warilda as a troopship 1915-1916, hospital ship 1916-1917, ambulance transport, 1917-1918 (N46/127-129)

 

Burns Philp & Company Limited

Staff Honour Roll, 1914-1919 (N115/524, 591, 628)

Photograph of SS Matunga, early 1900s (N115/502)

 

Signed copies of statutory declarations made by employees of Burns Philp under Regulation 49D of the War Precautions Act, 1916 (N115/78)

 

Post-WW1 settlement of German colonies in the Pacific, 1918-1919 (N115/3)

 

Sale of expropriated German plantations in New Guinea, 1919-1927 (N115/144-145)

 

Cavan Station, Yass, NSW
Correspondence (postcards, letters) received by F W F Castle-Roche from friends on active service, and other miscellaneous correspondence that discusses the course of the war and its effect on Company business, 1914-1918  (7/5, 9)

 

CSR Limited

CSR employees who enlisted in the War, 1914-1918 (142/3498)

 

Service records and biographical notes on staff, 1914-1918 (142/3494-3496; Z303/16/8)

 

Military pay to staff members, 1919 (Z303/NS794)

 

Photograph of the Honour Board to staff members who enlisted for service overseas, 1914-1917 (142/3500)

 

Staff Roll of Honour, 1914-1918 (Z303/16/4)

 

War Relief Fund, CSR Ltd, Sydney and Pyrmont staff, 1914-1919 (142/3497)

 

‘A record of the war service of members of staff, 1914-1918’ (142/3499, 3501)

 

Newspaper cuttings, 1914-1918 (142/3578)

 

Business dealings with Governments subsequent to 1915 (includes notes by E W Knox on his dealings with W M Hughes, Prime Minister, when the Commonwealth Government was proposing to take over the Australian sugar industry), 1915 (Z303/11)

 

Dalgety Australia Limited

Newspaper cuttings concerning the war, members of staff etc, 1914-1918 (100/1/81)

Elder Smith and Company Ltd

Wartime trading, 1913-1915 (8/10; 8/16-17; 8/20; 8/57/11-16)

 

Chartering matters, 1916-1917 (8/75)

 

Elders Metal & Mercantile Pty Ltd, 1914-1915 (N102/282-283; N102/288)

 

Photographs of staff members serving in the armed forces, 1914-1919 (Z220/1-3)

 

Pay book of Elders’ employees serving overseas in the AIF, indexed, 1916-1920 (N102/187)

Letters and cards sent to Walter J Young, General Manager, by former members of staff while on active service, 1914-1917 (8/57/18)

 

Godfrey Hirst & Company Pty Ltd
Correspondence and papers relating to a contract with the Commonwealth Defence Department and the Company to supply cloth, 1914-1924 (90/64B)

 

John McIlwraith Industries Ltd
Personal letters to family members on active service, with references to the course of the war and its effect on Company business, 1916-1918 (35/2/22-24)

 

Peel River Land and Mineral Company

Wartime profits and income tax, 1916-1936 (128/13/8; 128/14/1)

 

A B Pursell & Sons Pty Ltd

Newspaper cuttings, 1914-1918 (18/22/1)

 

‘Remnants from Randwick’ periodical, 1919 (18/22/12)

 

Tooth & Co Ltd

Staff casualties, 1914-1918 (Z223/14)

 

Unilever Australia Pty Ltd

Photographs –

Lever Brothers Ltd fund raising events, 19141-1918 (N163/15/793-803)

Unveiling Lever Brothers Ltd Roll of Honour, Sunlight Hall, Balmain, 1920 (N163/15/804-805)

 

 

UNION RECORDS

Included in the records of many unions are files about anti-war matters and conscription.

 

Amalgamated Engineering Union - Qld Branch
Dispute and industrial correspondence files - railway, cane cutters, coal, 1914-1918 (E220/16-21)


Australian Workers Union - NSW Branch

Annual Reports and Balance Sheets regarding the ‘anti-conscription’ levy, 1916-1917 (E154/41/1)

‘No Conscription Campaign’ The Australian Worker special edition, 1917 (S100)

 

Federated Furnishing Trade Society of Australasia
Anti-conscription correspondence and poster, 1916-1917 (T11/18)

Federated Ironworkers’ Association of Australia
Correspondence with Department of Defence, 1918 and Government Small Arms Factory (Lithgow), 1914-1919 (E218/13-14)

Merchant Service Guild of Australia

‘The cost of the war to the navigator’ - Annual Report, 1917 (E85/1/3)

 

Report of proceedings regarding Captain Manning (Olaf Skold) a German national, 1917  (E85/1/4)

 

Operative Stonemasons Society of Australia - Victoria Branch
Register of members’ payments of the ‘anti-conscription’ levy, 1917-1918 (E117/27)

 

 

PERSONAL PAPERS

Several trade unionists collected records about Australian political anti-war activities. The items listed below are just a sample.

 

BOSHER, Jock
Anti-conscription pamphlets, 1916-1918 (P16/1-3)

 

BARNES, Les
Conscription, referenda (leaflets), 1916-1918 (P8/3)

 

COUPE, J C
Australian Trade Unionism and Conscription, the report of proceedings of the Australian Trade Union Congress, Melbourne, 1916 (P19/2)

 

DAVIDSON, Jack

‘War Experiences, 1914-1918’ typescript, (P117/11)

 

NORMINGTON-RAWLING, J
Subject files (containing leaflets, handbills and correspondence) relating to:

Censorship and other matters, 1915, 1917-1918 (N57/578-579)

Holsworthy Concentration Camp, NSW, 1916-1922 (N57/580; N57/2297-2312)

Returned Sailors & Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, 1933, 1939 (N57/542)

Returned Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Nurses’ Anti-Imperialist Association, 1932 (N57/445)

Ex-Servicemen’s Defence Corps, 1932 (N57/446)

Peace and anti-conscription organisations, 1902-1943 (N57/438-456)

Anti-conscription movements in Australia, 1912-1940 (N57/960-1905)