Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

15/11/1915

Date of Discharge

28/04/1919

Place of Enlistment

Casula NSW

Gender

Male

Place of Birth

Camberwell, England

Address (at enlistment)

Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Horse driver

Next of Kin

James Stamford (friend), Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Service Number

2265

Final Rank

Corporal

Final Unit

55 Battalion AIF

Keating had been working as a groundsman and labourer at Duntroon since June 1913 when he enlisted on 15 November 1915. In July 1913 he was at the first annual meeting of the Royal Federal Lodge of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows. An Englishman, he was born in London in 1886 and was a friend of William Bryant and Joseph Mines (who were both killed in the war), serving with the 55th Battalion at Gueudecourt in France from December 1916 where he suffered trench feet. After being evacuated to England for treatment he injured his knee causing him to return to Australia in December 1918. He was discharged in Sydney on 28 April 1919. Keating married Amelia Garbutt in Sydney in 1923 and died at the Bowral District Hospital on 30 October 1937.

Description - height 5 feet 6 inches, weight 144 pounds, chest 34-38 inches, fresh complexion, hazel eyes, brown hair, Church of England, no civil convictions.

Rex Cross, 'Bygone Queanbeyan', 1980
Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000
AWM Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Files
Our Queanbeyan 'Boys' No.4, Howard & Shearsby, Yass (postcard)
Queanbeyan/ Canberra Advocate - 20 March 1919
Sydney Morning Herald - 1 November 1937
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)