William John Burrage

Service number: 3123B

Rank: Private

Unit: 56th Battalion (Infantry)

Service: Australian Army

Date of death: 26 October 1918

Cause of death: Illness (Pneumonia)

Cemetery or memorial details: Ste Marie Cemetery, Le Havre, France

War Grave Register notes:

BURRAGE, Pte. William John, 3123B. 56th Bn. Australian Inf. Died of pneumonia 26th Oct., 1918. Son of Charles Robert and Elizabeth Jane Burrage, of Brook Cottage, Balgowlah, via Manly, New South Wales, then Hope Street, Manly. Div. 62. V. N. 14.

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

Mr Burrage was born at Leichhardt. He was a butcher prior to enlisting, and had a butchery in Lawrence Street, Harbord. He enlisted on 26 October 1916 and served with the 56th Bn. He was wounded in the neck on 26 September 1917, and in the knee on 1 September 1918. He died of bronchial pneumonia on 26 October 1918, aged 32.

In his Will he bequeathed blocks of land in Balgowlah to his sisters Emily and Alice and brother Alfred.

He is commemorated on a headstone in Manly Cemetery, plot H.673. His parents are also buried in Manly Cemetery; his father Charles Burrage was a brickmaker, who later had a market garden in Hope Street.See Manly Daily 28 March 2007, p7 for article on stained-glass window at St Paul’s Church commemorating John and Harry Dunn and William Burrage. The article has a photo of William Burrage with a cricket bat. Brook Cottage is thought to be the old stone cottage on the corner of St Paul’s Road and Bangaroo Street, North Balgowlah.