The Great War

This page began as two men. It is now four. A wedding at Albion Church in March 1916 tied together a family that had already sent its sons — and the deeper the records went, the more of them turned up. One is the reason this archive exists at all. One is the reason it has a name on a memorial in France. One came home with the Military Medal and Bar and told his family, apparently, nothing. And the fourth was found this week and is barely known yet.

Lindesay Atkinson D'Arcy, Australian Army Service Corps

The family remembered only that he "served with the Australian Forces in France during the Great War" — the phrase in his 1936 obituary, and the sum of what his children knew. The rank, the number, the unit, the ship and the three and a half years are recovered here. The obituary →

His name is spelled Lindesay on one AWM record and Lindsay Darcy on the other, which is why both had to be searched. The name →

His service dossier could not be found — and something else was

This page previously said that a fourteen-page B2455 dossier for him "is known to exist". That was an overclaim, and it is withdrawn. The National Archives catalogue was searched directly under Lindesay Atkinson and under Lindsay Atkinson, and in the World War I name index under D'Arcy and Darcy. No B2455 item came back under any of them. The search method was verified by running the same query for his brother-in-law, which returned Arthur Sneyd's dossier immediately — so the tool works, and the absence is real. not found

The National Archives itself warns that "not all items from the series may be on RecordSearch", so this is a null result rather than a proof of absence. It now needs the National Reference Service rather than a search box. Queued →

Arthur Hartley Sneyd, 9th Battalion

Ivy's younger brother. Born at Rockhampton on 11 October 1893, schooled at Eagle Junction State School. His service dossier has now been read — thirty digitised pages, NAA B2455, item 8088453 — and it corrects the record in several places, starting with his trade. He was not a clerk. He was a typist.

The same page carries the words "(prev. reported wounded)" beside the killed-in-action stamp, and the entry "Wounded in action — see later report — 20.8.16". The family in Wooloowin were told first that he had been wounded. The correction came afterwards.

The report of death

Regiment or Corps: 9th Battalion A.I.F. · Regtl. No. 5050 · Rank Private · Name Sneyd, A. H.
Died — Date 20-8-16. Place In the field, France. Cause of death Killed in action.
Nature and date of report: Army Form B.213 dated 1-9-16, by the Commanding Officer, 9th Battalion A.I.F.
Burial — Place: "Not yet to hand." Date: — . By whom reported: — .
Whether he leaves a will: in Pay Book, "Not yet to hand."

"Not yet to hand" is the form's way of saying nobody could tell the War Office where he was. It never came to hand — but it was not for want of looking. Six men were asked, and one of them, his closest friend, was still trying thirteen months later. The search for Arthur →

Everything he owned

Inventory of Effects of — 5050 Sneyd, A.H., 9th Btn. A.I.F.
Forwarded to — Father, Mr A.W.H. Sneyd, James Street, Wooloowin, Brisbane, Queensland.

Effects. Ex Kit Store, Book No. 16.
Scarf, Letters.

Per "Barunga" 20.6.18. In Case No. 1224.

A scarf and some letters, in case number 1224, twenty-two months after he died.

The family tree records "buried in France". On the evidence that is probably wrong in a particular and poignant way: Australians who fell in France with no known grave are named on the Villers-Bretonneux memorial — 10,773 of them — and the Pozières Memorial, which stands among Australian graves, deliberately carries no Australian names for that reason. Every indication is that Arthur Hartley Sneyd is one of the 10,773.

Vivian Claude Sneyd, 3rd Australian Field Ambulance

Ivy's other brother, two years younger than Arthur — and until 9 September 2026 this archive had four words about him: "Salesman (listed as occupation on a death notice)". He was decorated twice for bravery under fire.

Westhoek, east of Ypres

During the operations at WESTHOEK, East of YPRES 4th October 1917, and succeeding days L/Cpl. Sneyd, while in charge of a squad of bearers showed exceptional bravery, endurance and cheerfulness, despite the heavy work, mud, rain, and fire from the enemy. Stretchers and rations were urgently needed for the forward squads — the weather being wet and bitterly cold and fires being unobtainable — this man volunteered to go back during the barrage fire of an evening counter attack, and returned with rations and stretchers for the R.A.P's. There was very considerable danger of being lost owing to the poor tracks and the darkness. The enterprise and resource of this bearer, and his personal disregard of danger, undoubtedly very materially helped in the difficult task of clearing the R.A.P's on this boggy and dangerous road. ( Awarded Military Medal 1/3/17. )

R.A.P. is a Regimental Aid Post. "Clearing" one means carrying the wounded out of it. The date places him in the Battle of Broodseinde, in the Passchendaele mud.

"On Honour's Roll" — and a face

The paper ran his photograph, and beside it the photograph of the man he had gone to war with.

Lance-corporal Vivian Sneyd, 3rd Field Ambulance, A.I.F., M.M. and Bar.
Private Vivian Maynard, 3rd Field Ambulance, A.I.F., M.M.

Lance-corporal Sneyd and Private Maynard are mates who enlisted together in 1915, saw service on Gallipoli, went to France together, and are still together somewhere in France or on the Rhine. Lance-corporal Sneyd is a son of Mr A. Sneyd, of James street, Wooloowin, and Private Maynard is a son of Mrs Maynard, of Bowen Bridge road, Brisbane.

Ernest Vivian William Sneyd — the cousin

Searching the National Archives for Vivian turned up a third Sneyd soldier the archive had no idea existed. His attestation paper settles who he was in one line: next of kin, "FATHER, THOMAS GEORGE SNEYD, Landsborough, Queensland". Thomas George was William Hartley Sneyd's eldest son — so this man is first cousin to Arthur and Vivian. documented

The length of the file is the story. Ninety-two pages — where his cousin Arthur's, for a man killed in action, runs to thirty. Almost all of it is medical. He was with the 31st Battalion in the line for a total of about five months across two years, and in hospital for most of the rest.

The file's own dates disagree by a few days across the May 1918 evacuation — a records office logging three hospitals and a ship out of order — and are reproduced as they stand rather than reconciled.

The 31st Battalion was in the 5th Australian Division, which attacked at Polygon Wood on 26 September 1917 — the date of his wound. the battle is inferred from the date; the form gives a date and "wounded in action", not a place.

Two corrections to the tree, which gives him only "b. between 1890 and 1892, d. between 1919 and 1921": his age of 25 years 2 months on 4 December 1915 puts his birth at about October 1890, and his death is 16 February 1920. His service is now dated to the day throughout.

March, May, August

18 March 1916 — Lindesay Atkinson D'Arcy marries Ivy Miriam Sneyd at Albion Church, Brisbane.

18 May 1916 — he sails from Sydney on the Demosthenes.

20 August 1916 — her brother is killed at Pozières, aged twenty-two.

And around those three dates stand the others. Vivian Claude Sneyd had been in uniform since July 1915 and had two more years of the Western Front to come. Their cousin Ernest Vivian William Sneyd sailed that September, was wounded at the end of the following one, and came home on a hospital ship in January 1919 to die.

In the last week of September and the first week of October 1917, two Sneyd cousins were in the same few miles of the Ypres salient. One was carried out of Polygon Wood with contusions on the 27th. The other, eight days later and a little to the north, was going forward through a barrage with stretchers, and was given a Bar to his Military Medal for it. There is no sign that either family knew.

Lindesay came home in July 1919 and died at forty-four in 1936, leaving Ivy with five children. Arthur did not come home at all. Ivy outlived them both by decades and is buried at Mt Thompson. The Sneyds →