Alexander Neat
| First name | Alexander |
|---|---|
| Last name | Neat |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 3/28/1890 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1907 |
| Submitted by | Gary Neat |
Story
[Reason for leaving homeland)
Lack of employment opportunities in northern England.
[About the Journey] Not Known.
[Impressions on Arrival]
Alex Neat arrived in Australia as a 17 year old and spent the next 7-years working on the NSW south coast where he met his wife to be – Mary Ann Vardy. When World War One was declared , Alex was one of the first to enlist and joined the 1st Battlalion – a unit destinied to fight on almost every major battlefield. He sailed from Sydney on the troopship ‘Africa’ on the 18th of October 1914. It would be 4 years before he returned to Mary Ann, but it would be a different man who stepped ashore in 1918 – wounded, war-ravaged and traumatised by battles ranging from Gallipoli to the Somme. Alex was with the 1st Battalion when it came ashore at Gallipoli on the 25th of April 1915. He remained at Gallipoli until the final evacuation. It was the 1st Battalion which fought at Lone Pine. In March 1916, Alex and his mates sailed from Egypt to the Western Front. He was to fight in the Somme, Pozieres, Bullecourt, Ypres, Amiens, Passchendaele and Lys. Alex was gassed on the Western Front and suffered from the agony of those wounds for the remainder of his life.
When he returned to Australia, he married his sweatheart – Mary Ann and they had two sons ie Alec and Frank ( Francis). But, the pain and the memories of those battles had taken their toll and on the 31st october 1933 – 15 years after returning from the Great War , Alex died as a result of that dreadful war – a war which had robbed a young nation of much of its youth. It was the Great Depression and Alex was buried in an unmarked grave at Sandgate Cemetery in Newcastle NSW.
Between them, his sons were to have 5 children ie Gary, Philip, Glenda, Jenny and Barbara and by 2006 there were 22 grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren who had never known this man, but who owed their existence to a 17 year old who had stepped ashore in Sydney in 1907 , then volunteered to fight for this new country and finally to succumb to his wounds. Like tens of thousands of other ” New Australians” he had made the ultimate sacrifice for this new land.