Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

05/12/1916

Date of Discharge

05/11/1918

Place of Enlistment

Goulburn NSW

Gender

Male

Other Name(s)

Nicknamed 'Snowy'

Date of Birth

30/05/1890

Place of Birth

Sydney NSW

Address (at enlistment)

Hazeldell NSW (previously Gungahleen ACT)

Occupation

Grazier

Next of Kin

Walter Parish (father), Hunter House, Sydney NSW

Service Number

3444

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

2 Mobile Veterinary Section AIF

Parish trained at the Bathurst Experimental Farm and became manager at 'Gungahleen' for Everard Crace in the years before the war before moving to 'Hazeldell' near Bungendore after Crace acquired it in 1913. He tried to enlist in February 1916 but was rejected as medically unfit due to poor eyesight. Parish was an albino and his defective eyesight was congenital. While he could see well over long distances, his near vision was poor. Nonetheless, he successfully enlisted in December 1916.

Parish embarked with the 9th reinforcements to the 54th Battalion the following month but after arriving in England he was transferred to the Australian Army Veterinary Corps. He arrived in France in May 1917 and served with the 2nd Mobile Veterinary Section. At an examination of his eyes in December 1917 it was found that he suffered nystagmus (involuntary eye movement) and he was transferred to hospital in England. He did not return to the frontline.

Parish was discharged in England as medically unfit but before returning to Australia he paid to have an appendectomy in Liverpool. This would later affect his chances of receiving repatriation benefits. He also paid for his return to Australia with his wife, travelling via America and Canada. While in transit his father (unsuccessfully) applied for a soldier settler's block in the Federal Territory on his behalf. Parish settled at Sandgate near Brisbane and applied for a war pension for his nervous condition. A doctor reported in 1934 that Parish was in a very nervous state due to his war service and he suffered severe neuralgic pain in the left eye. Parish argued that during the first and second battles of Passchendaele his unit was camped near Reningherst when he was kicked in the back by a mule. He was finally awarded a pension in 1964 for defective vision but was refused one for war neurosis and deafness. By then Parish had retired after being a cane farmer at Palmwood in Queensland for many years. He died at the Sacred Heart Convalescent Home at Sandgate on 3 April 1964.

Description - height 5 feet 6 inches, weight 153 pounds, chest 33-35 inches, fair complexion, blue eyes, white hair, Church of England, two vaccination marks.

NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
NAA RecordSearch - Series BP709/1 (Department of Veterans' Affairs First World War Medical Case File)
Martha Rutledge (ed.), 'Socks from Bungendore', 2015 (p.156)
Queanbeyan Age - 3 October 1911, 6 June 1913, 23 September 1913, 20 October 1914