Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

03/11/1914

Place of Enlistment

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

12/11/1894

Place of Birth

Ballarat, Victoria

Address (at enlistment)

Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT

Occupation

Soldier

Next of Kin

Son of Herbert Cleburne and Gertrude Marie Curwen-Walker of Ballarat, Victoria

Burial Place

No known grave.

Final Rank

Lieutenant

Final Unit

14 Battalion AIF

Died of wounds at sea, 3 May 1915, aged 20 years.

AWM Roll of Honour Memorial Panel 72, Canberra ACT
Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli, Turkey
Large stone tablet on outside of northern wall of St. John's Church, Reid ACT

Curwen-Walker entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon with the second intake on 7 March 1912. He was present at the naming ceremony for Canberra on 12 March 1913. He was graduated early along with the rest of his class on 2 November 1914 and appointed a Lieutenant in the 14th Battalion the following day. The 14th Battalion embarked for Egypt in December 1914 and landed on Gallipoli on 25/26 April 1915. Curwen-Walker was wounded in action on 1 May whilst leading a bayonet charge against the Turks probably on Maclaurin's Hill. He was evacuated on to the hospital ship Devanha but died from his wounds on 3 May 1915 and was buried at sea.

Description - height 5 feet 11 inches, weight 187 pounds, chest 40 inches.

AWM Roll of Honour Database
AWM Collections Record : A01219
Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
Newton Wanliss, 'History of the Fourteenth Battalion' (p.36)
The Duntroon Society, ‘The First Class’, Newsletter 2/2011
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)