Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

21/08/1914

Date of Discharge

15/07/1918

Place of Enlistment

Roseberry NSW

Gender

Male

Place of Birth

Belleuscraeu, Londonderry, Northern Ireland

Address (at enlistment)

Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Labourer

Next of Kin

Mrs. McGillan (mother), Londonderry, Northern Ireland

Service Number

29

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

14 Battalion AIF

McGillan was in Canberra working as a groom at the Royal Military College, Duntroon when he enlisted on 21 August 1914. He served with the 1st Light Horse Regiment on Gallipoli from May 1915 and was wounded in August at Pope's Hill. After recovering he was transferred to the 14th Battalion in Belgium in September 1917 but in December was hospitalised with chronic rheumatism. The following April he returned to Australia and was discharged in July 1918. He returned to work at Duntroon until 1920. He lived at Reedy Creek on the Sutton Road where he had a soldier settler's block in the 1920s. After the war he ran a delivery business that "calls at your door daily with fresh fruit and vegetables". Before the war he took part in boxing matches and in 1909 was described as a 'sturdy block' in a match against Billy Freebody (which he won). He appears on the Eden Monaro electoral roll of 1908 as a resident of Queanbeyan and on the ACT electoral roll of 1928 as a resident of Reedy Creek.

Description - height 5 feet 7 inches, weight 160 pounds, chest 35-38 inches, dark complexion, blue eyes, black hair, Catholic.

Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000
Rex Cross, 'Bygone Queanbeyan', 1980
Eden-Monaro electoral roll, 1908
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Queanbeyan Age - 6 July 1909, 27 August 1909, 21 September 1909, 21 June 1918, 20 September 1919, 6 May 1921, 20 September 1921, 21 November 1924, 22 December 1925