Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

16/01/1916

Date of Discharge

05/05/1919

Place of Enlistment

Cooma NSW

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

26/10/1894

Place of Birth

Tharwa ACT

Address (at enlistment)

Michelago NSW (previously Tharwa ACT)

School(s) Attended

Tharwa School, Michelago Public School

Occupation

Labourer

Next of Kin

Michael McMahon (father), Michelago NSW

Service Number

2196

Final Rank

Private

Final Unit

55 Battalion AIF

Queanbeyan RSL Wall of Remembrance, Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW
Michelago Public School Roll of Honour

Tim McMahon was born at either Majura or Tharwa (depending on your source) but he grew up near Tharwa with his older brother Michael and moved to Michelago with his family in about 1908. McMahon enlisted on 16 January 1916 as a member of the Men from Snowy River Route March. He embarked from Sydney in September 1916 as a Private with the 4th reinforcements to the 55th Battalion and arrived in France in December that year but was immediately hospitalised with bronchitis. He reached the frontline near Flers in January 1917 but by March was hospitalised with defective vision. He briefly rejoined his unit in July 1917 but was hospitalised shortly after with trench fever. By October 1917 he was blind in the right eye and had pains in his right leg. He returned to Australia in February 1919 and was discharged medically unfit on 5 May 1919. He returned to Michelago and lived at 'Hillview' until 1960 when it was burnt down after which he lived with relatives at nearby 'Drydale'. McMahon died on 11 May 1979, aged 84 years, at the Allambee Nursing Home in Belconnen and is buried in Michelago Cemetery. McMahon never married. He was the half brother of William and John Grady.

Description - height 5 feet 7 inches, weight 132 pounds, chest 34 inches, blue eyes, black hair, dark complexion, Catholic.

Rex Cross, Bygone Queanbeyan, 1980
Matthew Higgins, A Century of Learning : Tharwa Primary School 1899-1999, (1999)
Valerie Bofinger, Ryan: from Moycarkey, Tipperary to Mulligans Flat NSW, 1999
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'Men from Snowy River', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
Queanbeyan Age - 1 September 1916, 25 May 1917, 14 May 1979
The Canberra Times - 24 January 1970
Image courtesy of Mrs Colleen Cotter
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)