Maurice Richardson appears on Harold Pearce’s list of South Adelaide enlistees, but probably played more games for St Peters. Over six feet tall and solidly built, he appears first on team lists and was almost certainly a goalkeeper. He played some games for South in 1914 but switched to St Peters in 1915 – a good move as he lived on Payneham Road not far from Saints’ Eighth Avenue ground. And it paid off for Saints as they finished higher than South in the 1915 league table. Maurice Amos Richardson continued to play for St Peters after he enlisted on July 18th 1915 and finished the season with them.
He was born in Crowborough, Sussex and was an unmarried 23 years old nurseryman. He was appointed as a company bugler in the 32nd battalion. The battalion went over the top at Fromelles on July 19th 1916, only three days after they arrived on the western front, suffering heavy casualties. Richardson fortunately missed the battle, being ill in hospital back in his native East Sussex. He also missed the battalion’s next big battle, at Polygon Wood in late September 1917, as he was again hospitalized with injuries and illness.
The injury that finished his military career happened in May 1918, when he was laid low with a “sprained back”. He was returned to Australia and discharged in February 1919.
Maurice Richardson married Dorothy Brown in 1922, and he died in Adelaide in 1959.