Horace (Mainprice) Abbott played for Dinmore Bush Rats before the war until his enlistment in November 1915 at the age of 20. A miner by trade, he was allocated to the 1st Tunnelling Company, whose duties included digging tunnels underneath the enemy lines and building defensive underground shelters. Abbott was gassed in March 1918 and was out for three weeks, but according to his final medical review otherwise saw out the war unharmed. He was diagnosed with prostatitis, in January 1919 and was hospitalised for three months.
Abbott married Eva Lambert in June and by the end of the year the couple were enroute to Australia. The Dinmore Patriotic Committee put on a gathering in February to welcome Abbott and fellow returning soldier Fred Nunn, and to meet their new wives.
By 1923 the Abbotts had left Ipswich and were living in Baralaba, west of Biloela, where he worked for the local coal mine. Abbott formed Baralaba United, the first soccer club in the town. The new club featured several former Ipswich soccer figures in the playing ranks and organising committee, including members of Bush Rats and Silkstone Montes. Abbott wrote to Tom Barker, veteran sports editor of the Ipswich newspaper Queensland Times to announce the new club. Barker, writing on 27 April 1923, thus responded, “I wished the club every success but, at the same time, deplore the necessity for so many of the residents of this district having to go elsewhere for work – and football.”
Abbott died at the Balmoral Colliery at Rangal west of Baralaba in April 1928. He had been part of a group who had been instructed to repair an electrical fan in the mine. The attempted repairs by another worker caused a spark which ignited gas in the equipment, setting Abbott alight. Eva and their two children did not receive the news immediately as they were cut off by flood waters while visiting Abbott’s parents. The mine manager was later charged with not providing safe equipment in the mine, while the worker who caused the explosion was also charged.