Archibald Evatt Bland

Service number: 234

Rank: 2nd Corporal Unit: 1 Field Company Australian Engineers

Service: Australian Army

Date of death: 23 July 1916

Cause of death: Died of wounds

Cemetery or memorial details: Puchevillers British Cemetery, France

War Grave Register notes:

BLAND, 2nd Cpl. Archibald Evatt, 234. 1st Field Coy. Australian Engineers. Died of wounds 23rd July, 1916. Age 30 (born 1885). Native of Gloucester, England. Son of Samuel and Harriet Bland; husband of Isabella Bland, later of 266 Arden St., Coogee, New South Wales. I. F. 53.

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

Archibald Bland was born at Gloucester, England, in 1885. He attended Dean Close School at Gloucester, and was listed there in the 1901 Census.1 He was an engineer by profession. He married Isabella Emery at Manly in 1912, and they lived at 1 Fairy Bower Road (present day no 15). His name is on the Roll of Honour in the School’s WWI Memorial Chapel. He enlisted on 16 September 1914.

He served as a sapper at Gallipoli. He was promoted to corporal on 6 March 1916. He was wounded at Pozieres, and died in the 44th Casualty Clearing Hospital on 23 July 1916. Isabella’s son Albert Emery Bland died in a fall from a cliff-top at Coogee in 1937, aged 18.