REID, John Cecil Drury

  1. Service Details
  2. Personal Details
  3. Unit and Rank Details
  4. Fate
  5. Commemoration
  6. Awards and Honours
  7. Notes
  8. Sources

Service Details

Branch of Service
Army
Conflict
World War I (1914-1918)
Date of Enlistment
22/02/1916
Place of Enlistment
Broadmeadows, Victoria

Personal Details

Gender
Male
Other Name(s)
Sometimes referred to as Drury Reid
Date of Birth
14/05/1876
Place of Birth
Eaglehawk, Victoria
Address (at enlistment)
Willaura, Victoria (previously Acton ACT)
School(s) Attended
Scotch College (Melbourne, Victoria 1890-93), Bachelor of Civil Engineering Melbourne University, licensed land surveyor, licensed mining surveyor and engineer
Occupation
Surveyor
Next of Kin
Son of John Bentley Reid and Sybil Ross Drury Reid; husband of Jessie Beatrice Reid of Branxholme, Victoria and father of Stanley Francis Reid, Joan Innes Reid and Margaret Lyle Reid.
Burial Place

Belgium 89 Wulverghem-Lindenhoek Road Military Cemetery

Unit and Rank Details

Final Rank
Lieutenant
Final Unit
4 Australian Pioneer Battalion AIF

Fate

Died of wounds received near Messines in Belgium on 10 June 1917, aged 41 years

Commemoration

AWM Roll of Honour Memorial Panel 174, Canberra ACT
Large stone tablet on outside of northern wall of St. John's Church, Reid ACT (Reid, J.D.)
Branxholme & District Honour Roll, Branxholme Hall, Victoria

Awards and Honours

Military Cross awarded for his actions near Messines between 7-10 June 1917 (promulgated in Commonwealth of Australia Gazette No.219 of 20 October 1917).

Notes

There is no Roll of Honour Circular for this man.

Reid was the son of John Bentley Reid and Sybil Ross Drewry (Drury). He attended Scotch College in Melbourne and Melbourne University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering. Reid was appointed as a temporary surveyor from 2 January 1912 for the Department of Home Affairs in the Canberra area and was appointed full time from 1 July 1913. He worked on surveys at Mulligans Flat, Majura, Cotter River, the ACT border survey and Sulwood in Tuggeranong and acted as District Surveyor during the absence of Percy Sheaffe. During 1912 and 1913 he hosted several university students and trained them in various skills associated with surveying from camps near Coppins Crossing and Tuggeranong, and in 1913 he investigated sites for a cemetery in Weston Creek, on Ginninderra Creek in Belconnen and in the Yarralumla valley before recommending a site near Gungahlin Homestead in his final report in December 1914. His staff included Ernest Dowling and Harold McDuff who both enlisted. The AWM collection includes a letter from Reid to Charles Scrivener’s wife dated 12 January 1917. By then his mother was living in Scotland and his wife and family had moved to Branxholme, Victoria.

After enlisting in February 1916, Reid attended an Officer Training School in Sydney during March leading to an appointment as a 2nd Lieutenant, 5th Tunnelling Company in April 1916. The following month he left for England and was taken on strength with the 4th Pioneer Battalion in France in October 1916 and promoted to Lieutenant. On 10 June 1917 he received a bullet wound to the head and died the same day from the wound near Messines in Belgium. He was buried the next day in a cemetery at the foot of Messines Ridge in grave II.A.29. According to a witness the “cemetery was for some days continually shelled day and night, was called Dead Man’s Wood." Major Norman Macrae, commanding officer of the 4th Pioneer Battalion, later wrote in The Scotch Collegian: “He (Reid) had already shown great skill and courage in the first night of this great attack (7 June 1917, the Battle of Messines, Belgium) and had been chosen, with another officer and a small party, to carry out a reconnaissance of an extremely difficult and dangerous nature, not only on account of his great abilities for such work, but for his steadiness, reliability and courage.” He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his actions leading up to being mortally wounded. Reid married Jessie Philip at Sandringham, Victoria on 10 October 1912 and they had three children.

Description - height 5 feet 7 inches, weight 150 pounds, chest 36 inches, fair complexion, blue eyes, brown hair, Presbyterian.

Sources

AWM Roll of Honour Database
AWM Honours and Awards (Recommendations: First World War)
AWM Honours and Awards (Gazetted) Database
AWM Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Files
First World War Unit Embarkation Rolls
Terry Birtles, 'Charles Robert Scrivener: The Surveyor who Sited Australia's National Capital Twice', 2013
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
NAA RecordSearch - (A202) 1914/4381 Full names of Officers and Employees, Federal Territory Salaries Register
AWM Collections Record : H06659, PR04268
Patricia Clarke, ‘War Widows of the ACT’, https://www.womenaustralia.info/exhib/widows/reid.html
National Library of Australia : Country Women's Association of NSW (Canberra Branch) History, 1959 (manuscript call no. NLA MS 734)
Queanbeyan Age - 20 October 1914, 1 November 1915, 22 February 1916
The (Melbourne) Age - 11 December 1912
Scotch College World War 1 web site www.scotch.vic.edu.au/ww1/first/reidJCD.htm

Create Certificate
John Cecil Drury Reid. AWM image H06659.

John Cecil Drury Reid. AWM image H06659.

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