GOLDSBURY, John Samuel

John Samuel Goldsbury was 18 years and 8 months old when he enlisted on 17 January, 1916. He was, by occupation, a civil servant, single and with some military training: 4 years in the Senior Cadets and six months in the 64th Citizens Forces. He was the son of John Marriott Goldsbury and his wife, Esseltya Baldermary Frohlich. 

John Goldsbury was first sent to Royal Park, Melbourne, where he trained with the 24th Depot Battalion from 21 January to 4 February, 1916. He was then transferred to the Field Artillery, training at Maribyrnong as a gunner. On 1 April, he was taken on strength with the 23 Howitzer 108 Battery.  They embarked for France on 20 May, leaving from Melbourne on HMA Medic A 7 and landing in France on 31 December. He was taken on strength with the 23rd Howitzer Brigade on 6 January, 1917.

The winter of 1916-17 was a bitter one and troops were confined largely to defending posts and sending out raiding parties. John Goldsbury would have been there with the Third Division  under General D.S. Grimwade when the war began again with the coming of Spring. First was the Battle of Messines, including the famous attack on Hill 60, involving 1,500 field guns and 700 heavy guns, as well as twelve Divisions. Then Broodseinde, part of the Ypres Offensive, and in October, the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele. He was given leave back to England from 16 February to 9 March, 1918, and came back to the war to join the Third Division fighting the Spring Offensive. On 9 April, probably at Villers-Bretonneux, he was hit by a shell and severely wounded in the back, with fragments striking his shoulder and neck. From the battlefront Casualty Clearing Station he was sent back to England on board the Panama and admitted on 13 April to Horton County London War Hospital at Epsom.

The medical report stated: 'S.F. (Shell Fragments) struck right scapula region, causing considerable injury to spine of scapula. Several fragments of bone removed. Wounds large and lacerating.'

His parents were notified that he was severely ill. On 5 June, 1918, now out of danger, he was moved to the 3rd Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford and  then on to the No. 2 Command Depot at Weymouth on 16 June. He could no longer serve in the war, so from Weymouth, he was returned to Australia, leaving England on board H.T. Malta D17 on 21 September, 1918. He was finally discharged from the army on 3 May, 1919.

 John Samuel Goldsbury returned to Melbourne and lived first in Union Road, Surrey Hills, presumably with his parents. In 1924, he was back in East Melbourne, at Jolimont, living at 41 Agnes Street, and working as a civil servant. In 1931, he married Vera Violet Brown and they set up house together at 49 Weir Street, Canterbury.  By 1943, they had moved again, to the house they were to live in for the next thirty years, 89 Gordon Street, Balwyn. Throughout this time, John Goldsbury worked as a civil servant. He died on 28 December, 1974, aged 77, and is buried at Box Hill Cemetery.