Family :

Education & Career :

Clifton College & RMA Woolwich

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

The Gallipoli Campaign was fought on the Gallipoli peninsula 25th April 1915 to 9th January 1916. in a failed attempt to defeat Turkey by seizing the Dardanelles and capturing Istanbul. Ill-conceived and planned, the initial effort by the Royal Navy failed to force passage through the Dardanelles by sea power alone. It was then realised that a land force was needed to support the project by suppressing the Turkish mobile artillery batteries. By the time all was ready the Turks were well aware and well prepared. Despite amazing heroics on the day of the landings only minor beachheads were achieved and over the succeeding 8 months little progress was made. Eventually the beachheads were evacuated in a series of successful ruses.

Despite Gallipoli rightly becoming a national source of pride to Australians and New Zealanders, far more British casualties were sustained, and these days the substantial French contribution is almost forgotten.

Detail :

FRANCIS DUNCAN IRVINE MAJOR, 1ST INFANTRY BRIGADE, AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY, A.I.F. Francis Irvine was born 20/1/1875 in India. He was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1895 and passed the Staff College in 1910/11. He served on NW Frontier and held the Medal and Clasp (North West Frontier service). On the outbreak of the Great War he was married and living in Sydney where he was appointed Captain 1st Brigade AIF on 15/8/1914. He was promoted to Major 5th Oct 1914. He went to Gallipoli and was killed in action at Steele's Post, central Anzac, on 27th April 1915, aged 40.

BEAN in his Official History tells us that during Tuesday afternoon, when the Turkish attack threatened, reinforcements were called for on the left. Major Irvine, MacLaurin's brigade-major, collected 200 stray men in Monash Valley and was about to send them to the left, when he was told that the need for them there had passed. To satisfy himself of this he climbed to Steele's Post, and stood there observing, in a position exposed from the rear to the Turkish snipers who during this day's heavy fighting had crept onto Russell's Top. Men shouted to him that he would be sniped at. "It's my business to be sniped at," he said. The next moment he was killed by a shot from behind. Irvine was shot at 3 p.m. Ten minutes later MacLaurin, standing in his shirtsleeves behind the southern shoulder of the ridge which bears his name, was shot from the same point. He died without knowing of Irvine's death. The command of the 1st Brigade was given temporarily to Colonel Owen, of the 3rd Battalion, who was at Steele's Post on the same ridge. After the war his wife asked that in recognition of his service in the British Army his RE cap badge be put onto his headstone. This was refused but in the event didn't matter as he has no known grave.

See also: Australian Virtual War Memorial.

Masonic :

He was a Major in the A.I.F when he was initiated early 1915. He was raised only a month when he was killed in action, 6 days after he resigned from Lord Kitchener Lodge.

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley