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Can you help “Picture Coffs Harbour”? [Australian World War I “Battalion” 1916]

Our colleagues at Picture Coffs Harbour are seeking your assistance identifying this photograph.

Australian World War 1 "battalion" in England, 1916

Much Larger version available on Flickr!

It was donated to Coffs Harbour Regional Museum some time ago. They think it is possibly an Australian Field Artillery Brigade from either the 1st or 5th Division Artillery, or the Reserve Artillery Brigade, based on research they have done. Can you help?

  • Who donated this picture to the museum?
  • Who is this group in the picture? Is it a picture of a particular battalion or regiment?
  • Can anyone identify anyone in the picture?

More about Picture Coffs Harbour

Picture Coffs Harbour is a joint project of Coffs Harbour City Library and Coffs Harbour Regional Museum, and aims to digitally preserve and improve access to historical pictures significant to the Coffs Harbour region. These pictures are drawn from the Library’s and, in particular, the Museum’s extensive collections.

Work commenced on the project in January 2008 and over a thousand records have been created to date, with team members still busy scanning and cataloguing the remainder of the photographic collections – totaling an estimated 40,000 historical photographs altogether.

Explore their site

  • Fiona Sullivan says:

    Comment from @mich_sydney_2007 on flickr

    “Well someone with better resources than me ought to be able to make some progress with this. It appears to be around 200 men, so probably an entire batallion.
    There was only about 60 batallions in WW1, of which only a small proportion would have been present in their entirety at one location in England in 1916.
    There is a lot of military training ground near Salisbury.”

    August 22, 2012 at 9:30 am
  • Mick Reed says:

    This was probably taken at Larkhill Camp near Stonehenge. Several Australian battabions were stationed ther during 1916. It shouldn’t be hard to narrow it down

    August 23, 2012 at 1:29 pm
  • Susan Simmonds says:

    The “bandoliers” on the soldiers suggest to us that it’s a Light Horse batallion, and of course Salisbury Plain was a huge encampment. Another interesting feature is the building in the background, it’s clad in corrugated iron, initially we though it may have been a railway station, but maybe not. There may be photos of Sailbury camp in 1916 in the British Archives.

    October 4, 2012 at 3:27 pm