Norman Roberts

Service number: 570

Rank: Corporal

Unit: 3rd Battalion (Infantry)

Service: Australian Army

Date of death: 25 April 1915

Cause of death: Killed in action, Dardanelles

Cemetery or memorial details: Quinn's Post Cemetery, Gallipoli, Turkey

War Grave Register notes:

ROBERTS, Cpl. Norman, 570. 3rd Bn. Australian Inf. Killed in action 25th April, 1915. Age 27. Son of Horace Frederick and Mary Jane Roberts, of Adelong, Victoria Rd., Bellevue Hill, Sydney, New South Wales; husband of Louise Roberts. Native of Waverley, New South Wales.

Source: AWM145 Roll of Honour cards, 1914-1918 War, Army.

Prior to the war, Norman Roberts was a police constable, six foot tall, a commanding presence. He was a member of Manly LSC, and was well-known in swimming and life-saving circles. He was among the earliest to enlist, on 2nd September 1914, aged 27, listing his wife Mrs Louise Roberts as next of kin.

He embarked on HMAS Euripides on 20th October 1914.

He died at Gallipoli, one of the first men from Manly to die in WWI. He was remembered by an obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald as an outstanding example of ‘a sportsman who had paid the supreme sacrifice’.

He was married to Louise, and they had a son, Ian, and a daughter Jane May. His widow was presented with a cottage built by the Manly branch of the Voluntary Workers’ Association in April 1917 as a mark of the community’s respect for her late husband.