Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

22/03/1916

Date of Discharge

31/05/1919

Place of Enlistment

Liverpool NSW

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

17/11/1889

Place of Birth

Minmi NSW

Address (at enlistment)

Acton ACT

Occupation

Public servant

Next of Kin

John Laverty (father), West Wallsend NSW

Service Number

14483

Final Rank

Sapper

Final Unit

1 Australian & New Zealand Wireless Squadron AIF

Queanbeyan RSL Wall of Remembrance, Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW

Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette: 21 February 1919, page 2595, position 6; Commonwealth of Australia Gazette: 17 June 1919, page 1017, position 201)

Laverty was employed from 1913 as a clerk in the Lands and Survey Branch of the Department of Home Affairs in Canberra, living at the Bachelor Quarters in Acton. He was a member of the Canberra Pierrots, an amateur performance group based at the Bachelor Quarters. Laverty served as a Sapper with the 1st Australian New Zealand Wireless Squadron, arriving in Basra in August 1916 and serving in Mesopotamia (Iraq) where he was Mentioned in Despatches. He was discharged in May 1919. After the war he married and returned to Canberra to work as a public servant for several years living with his family in Braddon and Griffith. He died in Newcastle on 7 July 1969.

Description - height 5 feet 8 inches, chest 37 inches, dark complexion, grey eyes, black hair, Catholic.

Keast Burke (ed.), 'With horse and Morse in Mesopotamia: The story of Anzacs in Asia', 1927
National Library of Australia : Country Women's Association of NSW (Canberra Branch) History, 1959 (manuscript call no. NLA MS 734)
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
National Archives (A207) G1915/33 Rates of pay - officers and employees of Lands and Survey Branch, Federal Territory
National Archives (A207) G1915/2089 Bachelors Quarters - Canberra
A.W. Edwards, 'My War Diary', 1920 (AWM PR89/050)
Canberra & District Historical Society, Canberra Soccer Team, 1914 (photograph 2534)
Image donated by Michael Hall
Queanbeyan Age - 24 July 1914, 23 November 1915, 25 February 1916
Queanbeyan Leader - 18 October 1915
Newcastle Herald - 9 July 1969
ACT Electoral Rolls - 1928, 1935, 1941