239184 Pte. Francis John Hallett Australian Imperial Force 36th Btn. from:Emmaville, NSW (d.10th June 1917) Francis Hallett is not a relative but is named on the War Memorial in our village in Somerset. An article will be published on the Facebook page for The Charltons Historical Society on 10th of June 2017 to commemorate the centenary of his death and the following is from that text:
"Francis John Hallett was born in Charlton Mackrell and baptised on 11th December 1892. He would have attended the school at West Charlton and at the time of the 1901 census he was aged 8 and living with his father Frank 44, who was a shepherd, mother Emily 43; brothers Edwin J. 14, Percival H. 10, William A. 4 (died in WW1) and Roberts P. 10 months (died in WW1); sisters Emily J. 6 & Louisa 2. In 1911, Francis was a carter on a farm and living at home on Windmill Road (now Somerton Lane) with his mother and four siblings, but his father Frank was working away from home as a labourer.
On 2nd May 1912, aged 19, Francis (and at least one other farmhand from The Charltons, Arthur E Dyer) sailed from London on the P&O ship Commonwealth for Sydney via Cape Town. He took a reference written by Archdeacon F A Brymer on 16th January 1912 to assist him with obtaining work in Australia. Sadly, his father was buried at Charlton Mackrell less than a week later, on 8th May 1912.
Francis settled in New South Wales and was working as a baker and already in the Emmaville Rifle Corps when he enlisted in Sydney on 7th January 1916 and susbsequently served as a Private [service no 472] in B company of the 36th Battalion (9th Infantry Brigade) of the Australian Imperial Force.
On 13th May 1916 they embarked at Sydney on the Beltana, arriving in Devonport on 9th July, so it is to be hoped that Francis had leave during training in England to visit his family and friends in The Charltons before he sailed with the 36th Battalion AIF for active service in France on 22nd of November 1916.
When his battalion was in action during the battle of Messines from 7th June 1917, Francis was initially reported wounded in action but four days later it was confirmed that he had been killed in action on 10th June, probably as the result of artillery fire during a night attack on La Potterie farm at Messines.
By the middle of 1917, his mother Emily had lost her husband and four of her 12 children - Ernest Frank aged 7 in an accident in 1887; her eldest son Henry James who died of illness in April 1901 on the voyage home from the Boer War; and the first two of the three sons who died during WW1. Before WW1 other children had moved to work in South Wales from where one son and one daughter married and had also emigrated - but to Canada. So it is remarkable that she wrote a letter of condolence on 1st August 1917 to Miss Doris Reynolds, the Australian fiancee of her son Francis John (who called him Jack). Although his service records include letters in July from a Miss Reynolds in Emmaville enquiring about the fate of her fiancee whose name had appeared in a printed casualty list, the Australian side of this story has only been established through correspondence with the Australian grandson of Doris Reynolds who married someone else after the war but never forgot her fiance from Somerset. On a visit to The Charltons a few years ago, her grandson read the letter of condolence in Charlton Mackrell church and fortunately also recorded it in the visitors' book.
Jack Hallett is commemorated by name on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, where in 2016 we laid a wreath (including his photograph in AIF uniform from the Comrades of the Great War collection displayed in the Reading Room) on behalf of The Charltons parish."
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