Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Date of Enlistment
- 08/08/1915
- Date of Discharge
- 16/10/1919
- Place of Enlistment
- Cootamundra NSW
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Place of Birth
- Nelligen NSW
- Address (at enlistment)
- Clyde House, Nelligen NSW (previously Gungahleen School, Ainslie ACT)
- Occupation
- School Teacher
- Next of Kin
- Wilmot Middleton (father), Nelligen NSW
Unit and Rank Details
- Service Number
- 2946
- Final Rank
- Sergeant
- Final Unit
- 1 Light Horse Regiment AIF
Commemoration
War Memorial, Reid Street, Nelligen NSW
Notes
Malcolm Middleton was the school teacher at Gungahleen from November 1908 to November 1913 and was actively involved in community events around the Ginninderra district including the Ginninderra Farmers Union and annual show as well as in sports such as cricket and tennis. The community presented him with a gold albert in recognition of his service to the school at a farewell in January 1914. The Gungahleen School, though much altered, still stands in Piguinet Close in Lyneham on the Belconnen side of what was once the Yass Road.
Middleton was the son of a school teacher and came from Nelligen, near Batemans Bay on the south coast of New South Wales, where he was born in 1883. He enlisted on 8 August 1915 at Cootamundra and embarked in August 1916 with the 21st reinforcements for the 1st Light Horse Regiment. After arriving in Egypt in September 1916 he served with the 1st Light Horse Regiment during the campaigns in the Sinai and Palestine which included battles at Rafa and Gaza. Middleton was appointed as a Lance Corporal in March 1917 but was hospitalised between July and December 1917. He returned to his unit and was promoted to Corporal in July 1918 by which time the light horsemen were based in the low-lying Jordan River valley. The heat and stagnant pools of water were ideal breeding grounds for malaria carrying mosquitoes and the disease was rife amongst the Australian troops. During 1918 Middleton was among those affected and by the time he had recovered and rejoined his unit in October, Damascus had fallen and the Turks were a spent force. They signed an armistice with the British shortly afterwards. Middleton was promoted to the rank of temporary Sergeant in early 1919, returned to Australia and was discharged on 16 October 1919. After the war he returned to teaching and married Mary McKeahnie from ‘Wattle Valley’ near the Territory border at Ginns Gap. Middleton was teaching at Cattai Public School near Windsor when his wife died in 1936. He was living at Wentworthville in Sydney when he died on 9 December 1956. Middleton was buried next to his wife Mary in St John’s churchyard in Canberra.
Description - height 5 feet 6 inches, weight 126 pounds, fresh complexion, grey eyes, brown hair, Church of England, scars above right knee and on left thigh.
Sources
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Lyall Gillespie, 'Early Education and Schools in the Canberra Region', 1999
Jean Salisbury, 'Canberra: St. John's Churchyard 1844-1998', Canberra 2000
Queanbeyan Age - 20 October 1911, 23 September 1913, 20 January 1914, 28 March 1916, 19 August 1919
Windsor & Richmond Gazette - 21 August 1936