Ancestor Details
Name of Ancestor: Alexander Herbert Barber
Ancestor's date of birth: 20/03/1879
Ancestor's date of death: 20/07/1916
Cause of Death: KIA - Fromelles, France
Service Number: 501
Colony or State of enlistment: NSW, Place of Enlistment: Detail not provided
Unit: NSW Imperial Bushmen
Rank attained in Boer War: PTE, Date Effective: On enlistment
Highest Rank attained (if served after war): CPL, Date Effective: 06/03/1916
Murray Page: 96
Contingent: Fourth New South Wales
Ship: Armenian, Date of Sailing: 23/04/1900
Memorial details: Roll of Honour, Yass Soldiers' Memorial Hall. VC Corner (Panel No 11), Australian Cemetery, Fromelles, France. Roll of Honour, Australian War Memorial, Canberra. No known grave.
Awards/Decorations: Queen's South Africa Medal with clasps: Rhodesia, Transvaal, SA01. 1914/15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal.
Personal Characteristics: A dental technician by trade. Height: 168 cm, weight: 57 kg (1915), Brown hair, blue eyes, fair complexion.
Reasons to go and fight: Older brother, Charles Hume Barber enlisted.
Details of service in war: May 1900 - May 1901 in Rhodesia and west Transvaal including capture of de la Rey's convoy and guns at Wildfontein (24 March 1901).
Service and life after the Boer War: Returned to Australia: 17 July 1901 on the Orient. Continued to work as a Dental Technician at Yass NSW. Did not marry. Joined the AIF 8 July 1915. Served with 55 Bn in France. Killed in action at Fromelles 20 July 1916. "By a confusion of orders we were digging a communication trench in No Man's Land. Corporal Barber got two Machine Gun bullets at the base of the neck. Three of us were standing together, and he was the only one hit. We carried him back to an old communication trench nearer our lines than the Germans. We did not think he as mortally wounded. We left him as we had orders to go into the German lines." - 1304 Pte E.W. BELL, 55th Bn.
Descendant Details
Name of Descendant: Angela Lind, Killara NSW
Relationship to Ancestor: Great niece
