BARROW, Frank Turner

Frank Barrow enlisted on 5 April, 1917. He was 27 years' old, an electrician and married to Eleanor Jessie Sanders, with whom he was to have one child. His parents, Frank Herbert Barrow and Henrietta Penfold Barrow, were East Melbourne residents, living at 19 Lansdowne St., East Melbourne in 1909 and then at 364 Albert Street from 1914 to 1931. When Frank Turner Barrow married Eleanor in 1913, they lived 1t 153 Gipps St., East Melbourne.

On 5 May, Frank Barrow went into training camp, first at Broadmeadows, then at Seymour, where he was attached to the AASC. At the end of training, he was sent to Sydney by train, then embarked on the HMAT A15 'Wiltshire', stopping first at Melbourne, then to Suez on 11 March,1918.

Eight days after his arrival at Suez, Frank Barrow was in the Government Hospital at Suez, suffering with VD.  He  had been diagnosed on board ship and been hospitalised for fourteen days, before being transferred to the Government Hospital at Suez on 19 March. His report must have been satisfactory, because he was discharged the same day, and embarked the next day for England on board HMAT 'El Kahira'  from Alexandria. ON 20 April, 1918, he disembarked at Southampton, but was again ill, this time with influenza,. He was sent to the Military Hospital at Tedworth, then had a period of convalescence. He was finally discharged on 2/1/1919 and proceeded to France on 28 January.

By then, the war was over, but thousands of soldiers still needed to be be fed and equipped. This was the work of the Divisonal Trains: 'As each divisional train had arrived in France in the spring of 1916, it drew equipment and horses from the British depots and moved into the line. The basic resupply was for divisional supply columns to draw from railheads and deliver to a refillign point into the custody of the divisionla depot units of supply, from which the divisional train companies would collect and distribute to the brigade and divisional troops which they supported.' Frank Barrow's company was supporting the Fifth Division. He was taken on strength in the field on 8 February, 1919, serving until the end of July. In all, he was in France for 65 days, before being returned to England. Here he worked at Sutton Very until September. He was returned to Australia  on board the HMAT 'Ascanius' on 23 September, and discharged from service on 29 November, 1919.

Eleanor Barrow died in 1934, aged 42. Frank moved to Sydney some time later, and is recorded in the 1936 Electoral Rolls  as living at 19 Moncur Street, Woollahra, with Lilian Mary Barrow, presumably his second wife. He was still workign as an electrician. In the 1949 Electoral Rolls, they had moved to 188 Oxford Street and he was workign as a cleaner. By 1954, he was still in Oxford St, still workign as a cleaner, but alone.