The centenary of the planting of the Kingston Avenue of Honour was celebrated last Friday with the planting of a new tree to commemorate the contributions of horses during World War One.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The avenue, made up of 286 trees, mostly Dutch Elms, was planted in 1918 to commemorate men and women who served during the war and were associated with what was then known as the Shire of Creswick. Nine of the trees commemorate women who served as nurses during the war, while five remain unnamed.
At the time of the war, Kingston was a hub of the region and housed the Shire Offices. It had a population of 5000 people, with over 1000 of those people serving during the war. It was for these reasons it was chosen as the site to plant an Avenue of Honour.
Ballarat MP Catherine King planted the sapling with the assistance of two descendants of Newlyn’s William Grigg, who was involved in the Light Horse Battle of Beersheba, before she announced an $8000 Armistice Grant for the Friends of the Avenue to add and upgrade interpretive elements.
“The Friends of the Avenue have preserved this beautiful Avenue of Honour over the past 100 years, standing as exemplary custodians of the memory of those from the region who travelled overseas to fight for Australia in the First World War.”
Ms King said the planting of the new tree was a worthy contribution to the site and honoured the 169,000 horses who left Australia and never came home.
“(It commemorates) the horses which accompanied their men overseas and had to be destroyed rather than brought home to Australia,” she said.
Afterwards, Peter Somerville OAM, representing Friends of Sandy and the Australian Light Horse Association, spoke about Sandy, the only horse to return home after the war.
“Sandy was not a Light Horse, he was a good old work horse. Because of his placid nature, Captain Bridges took a liking to him and he became his horse. When Bridges was shot by a sniper at Gallipoli and later died on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean, his dying wish was to have Sandy brought back to Australia.”
Sandy was pensioned off and lived at the Maribyrnong remount depot for a number of years until he reached old age in the 1920s and was “mercifully put down”.
“Due to the cost that the vet gave for stuffing his body, they wouldn’t do it. So they cut off Sandy’s head and hooves. His hooves became paper weights and his head was sent to Canberra and stuffed with asbestos,” Mr Somerville said.
