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military experience. He may have served for 6 years in the Canadian
Mounted Police, but this hasn’t been confirmed.
He joined the mobile Reinforcement Unit and embarked from Sydney for
the Middle East on 19 December 1914. Because of his “veterinary skills”
he was made a sergeant on enlistment. Horses played an important role in
the First World War, lugging heavy equipment and artillery up to the front
lines. Fred spent a lot of time in the Middle East and didn’t arrive in
Marseilles, France until 26 June 1916. Records show that illness plagued
his service in France. His Commanding Officer, taking advantage of a
new rule in 1918 that “over 40 year old” soldiers could be sent home,
recommended that he return home, which he did on 12 May 1918. He
was 46 years old. While he received “a frosty return welcome home” at
the home he left nearly 4 years before, his grand daughter Jacqueline
Peek, says, with pride, that later in life, he became a very successful
businessman.
She said of Fred, “ He left his wife and six daughters supposedly to visit
relatives in England. They thought “he lost all his money at the races”
and consequently enlisted to replenish his money. Australians were the
best paid soldiers making them very popular in countries they visited.”
Jacqueline goes on “ My grandmother heard nothing of him until he came
home from the First World War. She asked him to go away quietly and
she would not ask him for anything.”
Reference: Information on Frederick Barley is taken from his enlistment
papers and from personal correspondence with his family in New
Zealand. I thank the family for their information and “straight talking”.
I believe the family has donated his medals to the War Memorial.
Note in regard to Frederick Barley’s Regimental Number.
●
I had a degree of excitement when I saw that Fred’s regimental
number was Number 1; was he the first soldier to enlist in the AIF?
No such luck, each Unit had a number 1. Later in World War 2 all
soldiers had their own individual number.
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