RAMSDALE, Cecil Harry

Cecil Harry Ramsdale was born on 9 August 1890 at Prahran.  He was the son of John Alfred Ramsdale and Margaret Daisy McGowan.  He was educated at Melbourne Grammar.

On his enlistment papers of 13 April 1913 he stated that he was a motor tyre traveller and, both parents having died, gave his next of kin as his uncle W.D. McGowan of the Dunlop Rubber Company, 108 Flinders Street, Melbourne. He had had military experience of two years with the Senior Cadets and 12 months with the Army Service Corps.  On 20 July 1915 he passed the exam for first appointment as 2^nd Lieutenant and applied for and was granted a commission on 11 August. Sometime between then and embarkation he married Rose Hannah Martin of West Melbourne.

He embarked on 21 March 1916 on the Malwa with the  6^th Infantry Brigade, 23^rd Infantry Battalion, 11^th Reinforcements.  He held the rank of acting sergeant.  On the embarkation roll he gave his address as 101 Powlett Street, East Melbourne.  The Malwa was a mail boat and carried about 500 passengers as well as troops.  (For a description of the voyage and camp life see Signaller John Barry’s letter home, link below). The troops disembarked at Suez on 19 April and were taken by truck to Tel-el-Kebir camp.  After six weeks training they left for Alexandria and boarded a boat for England via Gibraltar.  They were ‘escorted by a destroyer and steered a very zig-zag course to keep out of the way of tinned fish (torpedoes)’.  They arrived in Plymouth on 9 June.  Cecil left for France on 5 September to join his unit.  In November he spent ten days in hospital with trench feet.  He was promoted to sergeant in January 1917.  He was wounded in action on 20 February 1917 and was invalided to England with a gunshot wound to the right shoulder.  After about three months at the command depot at Sutton Veny he returned to the field in January 1918.  At Mericourt, near Amiens, he was wounded again on 15 May 1918, this time with a gunshot wound to the left arm.   He was out of the action until September.  He left France on 11 April 1919 and embarked for Australia from England a month later.  He arrived back in Melbourne on 27 June and was discharged on 11 August 1919

After the war he and Rose settled in Frankston where he became a popular entertainer, his specialty being Dickens impersonations.  He also ran elocution classes; was president of the local branch of the RSSILA (RSL) and played in the Frankston cricket B team.

He died in Elwood in 1951 leaving Rose, his widow, and two children.