DAVIES, Charles Stewart

  1. Service Details
  2. Personal Details
  3. Unit and Rank Details
  4. Awards and Honours
  5. Notes
  6. Sources

Service Details

Branch of Service
Army
Conflict
World War I (1914-1918)
Date of Enlistment
07/10/1915
Date of Discharge
28/05/1919
Place of Enlistment
Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Personal Details

Gender
Male
Date of Birth
06/09/1880
Place of Birth
England
Address (at enlistment)
Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
Occupation
Soldier
Next of Kin
Dorothea Davies (wife), Tuggeranong ACT

Unit and Rank Details

Final Rank
Colonel
Final Unit
8 Brigade AIF

Awards and Honours

Distinguished Service Order, Croix de Guerre, Mentioned in Despatches

Notes

Davies joined the instructional staff at the Royal Military College, Duntroon in January 1913. He was one of the captains of the guard at the naming ceremony for Canberra on 12 March 1913. Davies married Dorothea 'Tommy' Cunningham of Tuggeranong on 22 April 1916 at Cairo, Egypt. He had 16 years commission service with the Leicestershire Regiment, been an Instructor at the Signalling School in India, Instructor of Musketry at the Royal Military College, Duntroon and had served in the Boer War. According to his sister-in-law he had run away from home to enlist in the Boer War. At various times he commanded the 31st, 32nd, 55th and 60th Battalions before being given command of the 8th Brigade in November 1917. He was awarded the DSO for his command of the 32nd Battalion after the Battle of Polygon Wood on 27/28 September 1917, when he re-organised the defences and inflicted heavy losses on the Germans when they counter attacked. The French awarded the Croix de Guerre to Davies for the "operations on 8/9 August 1918 when an advance of seven miles was made and 831 prisoners, 22 guns, 85 machine guns and vast quantities of war material captured", and for the advance on Foucacourt on 27 August, at Bussu on 5 September, Le Mesnil and the Vendelles-Vermand line the following day.

After resigning his commission in the AIF he served in Russia during 1919 with the British Army but returned to Australia to spend Christmas with his wife and daughter at Lanyon. He left in March 1920 to serve in India and did not see his family again. He reportedly died on 10 December 1946.

Description - height 6 feet, weight 185 pounds, chest 38-41 inches, Church of England.

Sources

Jennifer Horsfield, 'Mary Cunningham: An Australian Life', 2004
Bruce Moore, 'Lanyon Saga', 1982
Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
Martha Rutledge (ed.), 'Socks from Bungendore', 2015 (p.89)
Queanbeyan Age - 9 May 1916, 14 July 1916
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
NLA image - http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-147938346
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'The Honour Guard at the Canberra Commencement Ceremony', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial

Create Certificate
Stewart Davies, Ismailia, Egypt in 1916. NLA image 147938346.

Stewart Davies, Ismailia, Egypt in 1916. NLA image 147938346.

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