To mark the arrival of the troop train at Toowoomba station, enroute to Brisbane, the Darling Downs Gazette of 5 August 1918 gave short biographies of the local returning soldiers on board. Among those was Alfred Francis, of whom the Gazette wrote: “Private A. Francis enlisted in Toowoomba in April 1915, and was attached to the 15th Field Ambulance. He saw service in Egypt and France, being two years on the Western front before having the misfortune to be gassed at Ypres”
Alfred Francis had been born in Newick, Sussex in 1894. He appeared on the 1911 U.K. census living in St Martin in the Fields, London, working as a Page Boy. It is unknown when he emigrated to Australia.
Francis was a 21-year-old labourer when he enlisted in Toowoomba in July 1915. Reaching Egypt by May 1916, he was sent to France in June with the 15th Field Ambulance. There is little in his military record until he was hit by mustard gas on 5 October 1917 and evacuated to England. After treatment in Winchester, he was discharged to the Depot in Weymouth.
He undertook training in January 1918 at Longbridge Deverill with the Australian Army Medical Corp before returning to France in early February. Francis lasted until April when he was admitted to hospital with trench fever which led to pleurisy — the inflammation of the tissue around the lungs. It was the pleurisy, not the mustard gas, which saw Francis return to Toowoomba later in the year.
Back home, Francis attended the inaugural meeting of the Returned Soldiers soccer club, as reported in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 12 April 1919. He regularly played for the club that season as a forward, sometimes as captain. His form led Francis to be selected for the Toowoomba representative team which beat the visiting Brisbane side Ellena 3-1.
Returned Soldiers’ were renamed Diggers in 1920, and Francis initially played on and served as secretary, but it was not to last. The Toowoomba Chronicle of 17 July reported Francis as resigning from the club owing to leaving town. It is unknown where he moved to and, though it possible he is the A. Francis, given the lack of players of that surname, who played for Brisbane-side Corinthians in 1922.
Francis married Edith Stewart Ah Fat in February 1922. Edith had been born in Dalby to the Chinese-descended Harry Ah Fat and Mary Stewart in 1896 and was schooled in Toowoomba. Francis and Edith were living in the Brisbane suburb of Morningside by the end of the 1920s and were still there when he reenlisted for the second war.
Just shy of his 45th birthday, he signed up on 2 October 1939. Francis served at the No. 1 Garrison Battalion and was promoted to Staff Sergeant, before being discharged in July 1940. The couple continued to live in Morningside until the 1950s, when they moved to Bulimba.
Edith wrote a letter to the Albert Park Barracks in 1969 confirming Francis had died in Greenslopes Hospital, Brisbane on 15 September 1965.