George Harley Sutherland (inset) was killed in action on the Menin Road during the First World War. Born in Scotland, he emigrated to Australia and worked on a farm near Barellan before he enlisted. Image credits: George Harley Sutherland, Australian Virtual War Memorial. Battle of the Menin Road, National Army Museum.
On Saturday 26 April, the Australian War Memorial (AWM) in Canberra will pay tribute to the life and service of Sergeant George Harley Sutherland, a young farmer from Barellan in the NSW Riverina region, who gave his life during the First World War.
The Last Post Ceremony, held daily at the memorial, will focus on Sutherland’s journey from rural Australia to the battlefields of Gallipoli and Belgium.
George Sutherland was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on 30 March 1893, the son of George Harley and Elizabeth Philip Sutherland.
He was educated at St Catherine’s School in Tranmere, near Birkenhead in England, and trained as an electrical engineer before emigrating to Australia in 1912.
He settled in the quiet, wheat-growing town of Barellan, where he found work on a local farm belonging to the Fairman family and became part of the tight-knit rural community.
When war broke out in August 1914, having previously served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve at Birkenhead for about three years, Sutherland was among the earliest to enlist in the newly-formed Australian Imperial Force.
He joined the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion — which was raised within a fortnight of the declaration of war — disembarking from Sydney aboard HMAT Afric in October 1914.
The 1st Battalion would go on to become one of the most battle-hardened units of the AIF.
Sutherland landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 as part of the second and third waves of the Australian assault.
Just two days after setting foot on the infamous peninsula, he was wounded.
Like many soldiers of the time, he endured and recovered at a hospital in Malta before rejoining his unit in June.
He would later fight in the brutal and iconic Battle of Lone Pine in August that year — a clash remembered for its intensity and close-quarters combat.
In November, illness once again forced Sutherland’s evacuation — this time to England with a severe case of influenza – but by August 1916, he was back with the 1st Battalion, which had by then shifted to the Western Front in France. By this time, he had risen to the rank of sergeant.
The 1st Battalion served with distinction in many of the major battles on the Western Front, including Pozieres, Bullecourt and Ypres.
It was near Ypres, Belgium — during the Third Battle of Ypres — that Sutherland’s service came to a tragic end.
On 16 September 1917, he was killed in action by a shell fragment during heavy German bombardment near Clapham Junction on the Menin Road.
He was just 24 years old and has no known grave.
Described in firsthand account records “as an original man”, his “low” service number 80 signalling the fact he was among the first to enlist, he is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial in Belgium.
More than a century later, a 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal to his name, Sergeant George Harley Sutherland’s name is also etched on the roll of honour at the AWM — one of more than 103,000 Australians who served and died for their country.
His story will be brought to life this coming Saturday at the AWM’s Last Post Ceremony, which begins at 4:30 pm and takes place every day of the year, except Christmas Day.
Since its inception, more than 3800 individual stories have been told, forming an enduring record of personal sacrifice.
“The Last Post Ceremony is our commitment to remembering and honouring the legacy of Australian service,” said AWM director Matt Anderson. “We not only acknowledge where and how these men and women died, we also tell the stories of who they were when they were alive, and of the families who loved and, in so many cases, still mourn for them”.
The ceremony will be livestreamed on the AWM’s YouTube channel, allowing those far from Canberra — including Sutherland’s English relatives and the Barellan community — to join in.
Historian Thomas Rogers, who helped prepare the tribute, reflected on Sergeant Sutherland’s life.
“He was part of that first wave of Australians who answered the call in 1914,” he said. “His story is one of courage, service and sacrifice — and it deserves to be remembered.”
As the bugle sounds the Last Post this Saturday evening, the story of Sergeant George Harley Sutherland will echo once more, not only through the halls of the memorial but in the main street of Barellan where his Australian story began.
There, in front of the towering grain silos, without fuss or fanfare, a memorial avenue of peppercorn trees – planted in 1920 by a number of ladies, relatives of the district men who had fallen in the war – still commemorates those who died in service or were affected by World War I.
Original Article published by Edwina Mason on About Regional.
