The known soccer career of Charles Bish can be shown in two photographs. The first, from 1920 and held by the Queensland State Library, is a club photo of Returned Soldiers’ soccer club where Bish was secretary. The club did not last long, with most of the players in the picture leaving at the end of the season to join Brisbane City. According to the Daily Mail on 28 September 1921, Bish attempted to keep Returned Soldiers going but a subsequent club photograph of Brisbane City, published in Sports Referee on 1 July 1922 shows he had followed the players and became City’s secretary.
Bish was 26 when he enlisted in September 1915 in Rockhampton, with The Capricornian of 11 September stating he was living at Longreach at the time. It is unknown when he came to Australia, having been born in London. He had 2 years’ prior experience in the Royal Navy by the time of his enlistment. Bish was allocated to the 15th Battalion and arrived in France in November 1916. He lasted until February 1917 when he was hospitalised with nephritis. He was sent to England, and in May was sent back to Australia.
He arrived in August and was discharged. Bish became a Queensland government chauffeur after the war. A letter from Bish to the Daily Mail was published on 15 July 1919, in which he argued private car owners should help veterans.
I agree that there are a good number of private motor car owners who could assist in the good work of transporting returned soldiers, but fail to do so. These owners of cars should deem it their bounden duty to do so. A ‘joy-ride’ from the railway station to the hospital is little enough reward for what the soldiers have done for the welfare of the private car owners.
Bish wrote the letter in response to “Quite Enough”, whose own letter appear on 11 July. “Quite Enough”, while also blaming the wider public, took specific aim at state drivers for not assisting veterans arriving home on troop trains. Bish, in his reply, explained that the number of state cars was far less than private ownership, and that “the majority of State car drivers are returned men, who have often got a fair day’s work in long before the troop trains arrive…”
The same year Bish was the Honorary Secretary of the South Brisbane Sub-branch of the Returned Soldiers and Sailors’ League. He was mostly visible in connection with his occupation as a driver, mechanic and motor vehicle salesman, being attached at various times in the 1920s with General Motors in Brisbane and Warwick and Brisbane firm Howard Motor Co.
His private life appears tumultuous. He married Ada Caroline Lovelace in November 1920, and their daughter Edith was born in September 1921. But according to a well reported case, including by the Toowoomba Chronicle of 17 January 1924, Ada and two others “seized” Edith and took her away, leading Bish to head to the courts. A court order was given that Ada had to show cause as to why she should not produce the child.
Nine years later, the Brisbane Courier of 4 March 1933 reported Ada successfully requested the dissolution of her marriage on the grounds of desertion. The whereabouts of Bish was “unknown”. Ada was subsequently given custody of Edith. Bish is not in Queensland’s Birth, Death and Marriages, but appears in Young, New South Wales in the 1940s.
Charles Joseph Bish enlisted in WW2, with a next of kin of Miss Edith Bish, who lived in Brisbane. It appears Bish lied about his age, giving his date of birth of 25 August 1900, and claimed his birthplace was Muttaburra, north of Longreach. It was not uncommon for veterans of the first war to lie about their age to ensure they were not too old to enlist in the second. Bish served 70 days in the Citizen Military Forces from 1 October 1941 to 9 December 1941 at which point he was discharged.
He wasn’t strictly discharged but instead changed service. The date 9 December was the date of his enlistment, this time giving his date of birth of 25 August 1902, and giving his occupation as Shearers Cook. This time he served in Port Darwin in 1942, and later overseas in the Solomons in 1944. He was discharged in December 1945.
Bish was killed after he and five other men were hit by a vehicle in April 1947. The Burrowa News of 2 May stated:
Mr Charles Bish, of Young, a veteran of two world wars, was killed on Saturday night when returning from a returned soldiers’ dinner at Babbaree, near Young. He was struck by a truck when standing near the side of the road.