All meetings begin at 7.30pm at Burnside City Uniting Church in Tusmore.
Aug 7 – FROM HERE THEY MARCHED – Mitcham Camp and the Training of AIF Volunteers in South Australia 1914-1918
Speaker: Gavin Scrimgeour
Mitcham Camp, located in what is now the suburb of Colonel Light Gardens, was the training ground for thousands of South Australian volunteers who enlisted to fight for the AIF in the First World War. The camp opened in bare paddocks in April 1915 after earlier camps had proved inadequate; it overcame significant early difficulties to become what was proudly claimed to be ‘the model camp of the Common-wealth’. Men from all walks of civilian life were brought together and prepared for the discipline of military life and for war. Military authorities approached the task of meeting the physical and social needs of as many as 4,400 men at a time, all newly away from their homes and families, and facing an uncertain future.
The part played by other military training camps in and near Adelaide during the war will also be described. This includes the Morphettville and Ascot Park/Oaklands camps where the men of the earliest contingents trained before their involvement in the landing and fighting at Gallipoli.
Gavin Scrimgeour has a passion for social history – the experiences of people unavoidably caught up in the events of their time. He is a researcher of South Australian involvement in the First World War. As well as ‘From Here They Marched’, he is the author of ‘A Veritable Hell’, the story of the South Australians of the 32nd Battalion at the Battle of Fromelles, and the grief, anxiety and suspense of the families of the missing, as they waited for news and made their own desperate enquiries.