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James Eric HEMPHILL MM

HEMPHILL
Date of birth3 October 1891
PlaceProspect, South Australia, Australia
ParentsJames Johnston and Agnes Ada (nee Scott) Hemphill
Date of death23 October 1972
PlaceHeidelberg, Victoria, Australia
Age 81
Scotch Year(s)1905 to 1907

Service record and post-war life

James was a 23-year-old salesman when he enlisted in Melbourne on 18 September 1915. He was allotted the Regimental No. 12315 and assigned to the 23rd Depot Battalion as a Private. In October 1915 he was sent to the Australian Medical Corps at Ascot Vale, and then on 16 March 1916 he joined the 10th Field Ambulance. He sailed with that unit for Plymouth, England on 11 May 1916. In October he was ‘admonished’ for unspecified ‘conduct to prejudice of good order and military discipline.’ He left Southampton for France in November 1916. In France he was appointed Lance Corporal on 1 May 1917. James was hospitalised for a week in October 1917.

On 1 November 1918 he was awarded a Military Medal. The recommendation for this medal, reproduced below, stated that on the night of 21/22 August 1918, near a place called ‘Happy Valley’, near Bray, in France, he volunteered to go through heavy enemy shell and machine gun fire to bring in some wounded men lying in shell holes in No Man’s Land. With the help of another soldier he brought in two wounded men, ‘undoubtedly saving the lives of these men by his gallant act.’ The recommendation said too that throughout the day he had displayed an ‘utter disregard of danger’. He sailed for Australia on 19 August 1919.

James was a tea merchant in the Felton Buildings of Queen Street, Melbourne. Between 1937 and 1942 he left Camberwell to live alone in Frankston. He died at Heidleberg in 1972 and donated his body to science. James had married Harriet Minella Lucy Dodgson (d. 1979) in 1925, and later Margaret Mary Caffey (d. 1983).

Photographs and Documents:

hemphillJE

James Hemphill as a Private at Broadmeadows in 1915.

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Recommendation for James Hemphill’s Military Medal, from his Service Record

Sources:

  1. Australian War Memorial – Honours and Awards
  2. Mishura Scotch Database
  3. National Archives of Australia – B2455, HEMPHILL J E 12315
  4. The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=133966

Page last updated: 11 November 2015