Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

19/08/1914

Date of Discharge

22/02/1919

Place of Enlistment

Sydney NSW

Gender

Male

Place of Birth

Birmingham, England

Address (at enlistment)

Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Driver

Next of Kin

F.W. Meads (father), Jamaica Road, Birmingham, England

Service Number

196

Final Rank

Sapper

Final Unit

1 Field Company Engineers AIF

Meads was an Englishman working as a groom at the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1913 after 12 years in the Kings Hussars. He enlisted on 19 August 1914 in Sydney as a 30 year old, landing at Gallipoli with the 1st Field Company Engineers in April 1915. In June 1915 he was admitted to hospital in Alexandria with kidney stones. In October 1915 he was court martialled for assaulting an Egyptian citizen and stealing a bottle of beer from the Depot Biere Bumonti. He arrived in France in March 1916 but in September 1917 he was reduced to the rank of Sapper for inefficiency. The following January he was court martialled for causing "to be sent to the High Commissioner a certain letter relating to Court Marshall proceedings". He returned to Australia in October 1918 on special 1914 leave and was discharged on 22 February 1919. However, by 1922 he had returned to Birmingham in England.

Description - height 5 feet 6 inches, weight 154 pounds, chest 37- 40 inches, dark complexion, eyes "sufficient", dark hair, Church of England.

Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000
Queanbeyan Age - 19 September 1916
Sydney Mail - 24 March 1915
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)