Thomas Weller was a 12-year gunner in the British Navy, who arrived in Sydney on the HMS Drake. He was the goalkeeper in the ship’s soccer side which entered the 1912 Rawson Cup. He also played for a combined Navy team against the visiting Queensland representative team the same year. When Weller’s service ended in June 1912, he moved to Ipswich, Queensland to become a railway boilermaker. Here Weller played for the Ipswich City club and was selected for the 1913 Queensland representative squad on their next tour of New South Wales He played one game on the tour, against Combined Hospitals, a team made up of staff who played for different mental hospitals teams in the wider Sydney league.
Weller enlisted in April 1915 at the age of 33 and was allocated to the 26th Battalion. His early war was beset by jaundice, but he was later mentioned for gallant conduct during combat in Pozieres in 1916. In February 1917 he developed varicose vein which led to his evacuation to England. Weller worked in several military depots before being discharged in November as permanently medically unfit. Weller’s later obituary claimed he was discharged after being gassed; a claim not backed up by his military records.
His discharge in England rather than a return to Australia was possible due to alternative employment at a munitions factory, as well as his new marriage to Hannah. The couple lived in Birmingham after the war until they moved to Australia in 1920.
The Wellers lived in Stanthorpe and later Rosewood where their only child died young. Weller later died from illness in 1929. His obituary noted he had been a well-known footballer during his time in Ipswich and had been an international soccer goalkeeper, a probable reference to playing for the HMS Drake wherever the ship landed.