Words and main image: Eve Lamb

Reading a story in The Local back in April, Blackwood resident Noel Ewer’s attention was quietly captured as he realised it was about his own Great Uncle Thomas.

The story that ran in the April 7 edition reported a tree planting ceremony held back in March in Daylesford’s Avenue of Honour on Daylesford-Malmsbury Road.

The tree being planted was to honour the memory of Private Thomas Alfred Chaplain, Noel’s great uncle who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War One.

Born in 1882, the young Thomas had attended Daylesford State School and later worked as a miner but in May 1915 as WWI raged he enlisted, joining the 26th Infantry Battalion of the Australian  Imperial Force.

The 26th Battalion was a unit raised from Queensland and Tasmania, part of the 7th Brigade and Thomas became among the first Australians to provide reinforcements at Gallipoli, landing there in early September 1915.

Thomas and his battalion endured the brutal conditions of the peninsula – steep terrain, relentless enemy fire, disease and hunger as they played a key role in holding the line at the infamous Lone Pine and Russell’s Top, where trenches were so close that battles were fought not just with bullets, but with grenades and bayonets.

Sadly, it was in these conditions that Thomas fell ill with dysentery, a fate that claimed many young men in the trenches of Gallipoli. He was evacuated to a hospital ship, but succumbed to his illness on the 8th of November 1915.

Thomas was buried at sea, far from his Daylesford home, yet forever remembered on the Lone Pine Memorial in Turkey (Turkiye).

Now aged 82, his great nephew Noel says the story in The Local caught his eye for obvious reasons.Noel’s mother, Marion Ewer (nee Chaplain) was Thomas’s niece.

“My grandfather Robert  was Thomas’s elder brother,” says Noel.

“I’m 82 now and as far as I know I’m the last of my mother’s family, probably the last of the Chaplain line.  I’m not aware of any others.”

Noel has a photos of his maternal grandfather, Robert (Thomas’ brother) and of his own mother Marion (Thomas’ niece), but unfortunately no photos of Thomas himself. He values the information he has been able to amass about his Great Uncle Thomas and says he wouldn’t have known anything about the recent Avenue tree planting in Thomas’ honour had he not read the recent article.

“I was quite pleased to see it,” says Noel who’s been living in Blackwood for about 35 years now.

“We had been to the RSL in Dayleford a couple of years back and they showed us a history book done by local school kids that records all the Daylesford soldiers that went to World War I, including Thomas, and I had been told a little bit of the history. I knew his name was on the war memorial.

“My (maternal) grandfather Robert, his elder brother, worked as a bullock driver and there was also another older brother called William who was also a bullock driver but he never married.”

Suffice to say, visiting the historic Daylesford Avenue of Honour now offers added cause for a little quiet reflection for Noel as he remembers his Great Uncle Thomas and watches the tree that’s been planted in his memory slowly grow with the years.

A new tree planted in the historic Daylesford Avenue of Honour remembers the life of Daylesford’s Private Thomas Alfred Chaplain who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War I.

“We gather to honour and remember Private Thomas Alfred Chaplain, a son of Daylesford, who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Great War,” said Hepburn Shire Council mayor, Cr Don Henderson, attending the tree planting ceremony last Sunday (March 31).

Born in 1882, Thomas attended Daylesford State School and later worked as a miner. In May 1915, at the age of 33, he enlisted in Brisbane, joining the 26th Infantry Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force.

Thomas’ journey led him to the battlefields of Gallipoli, where he faced harrowing conditions of war. Tragically, he succumbed to dysentery on November 8, 1915, aboard the hospital ship HS Galeka. He was laid to rest at sea and is commemorated on the Lone Pine Memorial in Turkey.

“May this tree grow strong and tall, a lasting symbol of their resilience and sacrifice,” Cr Henderson said.

“And may we, as a community, always honour their memory by living lives worthy of the price they paid.”

This story based on a Hepburn shire Council media statement. Image: supplied