Albert Edward Witton was born in Exeter, Devon, in 1889. After emigrating to South Australia he joined the Warilda soccer club, but soon transferred to South Adelaide and was a regular for the city club in 1912 and 1913. He was quick to join the AIF when war broke out, enlisting at Morphetville on 25 September 1914. His occupation was “house decorator”.
He served with the 13th Field Ambulance in France, and in “stationary hospitals” on Mudros and in England. Bert Witton was returned to Adelaide and discharged in June 1919, still a private, and did not continue with soccer. He had met teenaged clerical assistant Dorothy Porter in Kent and they were married at Brentford in June 1918. Tragically, Dorothy died in Adelaide in 1929 aged only 29.
Bert Witton died in the Daw Park Repatriation Hospital in 1973, aged 84.