Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

05/07/1918

Date of Discharge

02/02/1919

Place of Enlistment

Sydney NSW

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

21/07/1897

Place of Birth

Weetangerra (Weetangera) ACT

Address (at enlistment)

Boorowa NSW (previously 'Round Hill' via Weetangera ACT)

School(s) Attended

Weetangerra/ Weetangera School

Occupation

Grazier

Next of Kin

Roderick McDonald (father), Boorowa NSW

Service Number

66498

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

NSW 21 reinforcements

Weetangera Honor Roll, St. John's Schoolhouse Museum, Reid
Boorowa War Memorial

On the eastern slopes of Mt. Painter, known to locals in the nineteenth century as Round Hill, was the selection of Roderick McDonald who married Louisa Morton (sister of Norman Morton) from neighbouring ‘Glenloch’ in 1895. Their youngest child was Aubrey McDonald but unfortunately Louisa died giving birth to him at ‘Round Hill’ on 21 July 1897. Despite his loss Roderick McDonald held on at Round Hill until 1915 when he moved his family to the Boorowa district after the acquisition of the property by the Commonwealth. 

Aubrey McDonald enlisted in Sydney on 5 July 1918, close to his 21st birthday, an age at which he would not need his father’s consent. He embarked in Sydney on 22 October 1918 on the HMAT Boonah as a Private with the 21st general reinforcements from New South Wales. The ship reached Durban in South Africa a few days after the armistice was signed with Germany but unfortunately Spanish influenza was endemic in the city and men aboard the Boonah became infected. The Boonah was ordered to return to Australia but by the time they reached Fremantle on 12 December 1918 around 300 men were seriously ill. The sick were eventually allowed to disembark and sent to a quarantine station. Immigration authorities refused to allow the remaining men to disembark. 

After public outrage about the confinement of the men on the ship, the Boonah was allowed to sail to Adelaide. There McDonald and the other soldiers disembarked onto Torrens Island Quarantine Station on 20 December 1918. Aubrey McDonald avoided contracting influenza and returned to Boorowa after the war. He married Honorah Elvin in Cowra in 1928 but they divorced a few years later. McDonald moved to Queensland there he also went by the name of ‘William Miller’. He lived to the age of 82 years and died at Nazareth House, an aged person’s home, in Wynnum in Queensland on 18 March 1980.

Description - height 5 feet 10 inches, weight 142 pounds, chest 32-36 inches, fair complexion, grey eyes, brown hair, Presbyterian.

Margaret Clough, 'Spilt Milk: A history of the Weetangera School 1875-2004', 2004
Rex Cross, 'Bygone Queanbeyan', 1980
Lyall Gillespie, 'Ginninderra - Forerunner to Canberra', 1992
G.A. Mawer, 'When Hall Answered the Call', 2015
Samuel Shumack, 'An autobiography or Tales and Legends of Canberra pioneers', 1967
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)