Donald MacDonald Galbraith was one of three brothers who came to Adelaide with their parents in 1912 from the Scottish town of Coatbridge. Just west of Glasgow, Coatbridge was a declining industrial and mining centre noted for the poverty of its inhabitants and squalid housing conditions.
In the pleasanter and healthier environment of Adelaide, Donald worked as a boilermaker for the SA Harbors Board and played for Sturt reserves, where his brother Robert was team captain in 1913-1914. Donald didn’t play as regularly as Robert, who was ever present, but both of them switched to the Adelaide club in 1915.
Donald joined up at the end of the season, in August 1915. On the nominal roll of the 48th and then the 32nd Battalion, Donald Galbraith was in and out of hospital and served only briefly at the Front in France. In early 1918 he was diagnosed with varicose veins and returned to Australia. On the way home he was in trouble for missing the departure of his ship at Cape Town and having to wait for the next one. He was eventually discharged in Adelaide in May 1918. Brother Robert had also been discharged with varicose veins in February 1918 – his service had taken him no further than the Mitcham training camp.
Donald died at the age of 56 in 1943 and was buried in Sydney, his death attributed to war service.