Jack Crump was born in London in about 1893, the second youngest of seven children to John Crump and Rosina Caeser. When Jack was 18, two of his sisters, Clara and Maria, left the family home in Fulham to establish a new life for themselves in Western Australia. In the years that followed John and another sister, Lillian, made the journey to Fremantle with Rosina and Jack the last to arrive in June 1914.
While John, the head of the family, had set himself up on Hay Street in central Perth, Rosina and Jack ventured north to the Mid West coastal city of Geraldton, living on Augustus Street. Jack wore the red shirt and white knickers of the Geraldton Town club during the 1915 season, which ended with Town collecting the Hansen Cup after defeating Thistle in a replay. Jack had served a period in the 88th Infantry Regiment prior to enlisting as a Private with the 16th Battalion in December 1915.
He arrived in Alexandria, Egypt, in mid-year and immediately proceeded to France where he was transferred to the 48th Battalion, formed only months earlier during a reorganisation of the AIF. Jack was reported missing in action in August. A note on his service record from an unknown 48th Battalion colleague reads, “I have been doing my best to get tidings of your poor Jack Crump. He went up on to Pozieres Ridge with me on the night of August 5th and that has been the last seen of him. To be taken prisoner he would have to be hopelessly lost for what Germans we see that night had no fight in them.”
A court of action later declared 23-year old Jack Crump had been killed in action on 8 August, 1916, at Pozieres.