Former Cities player Edward Davies is an example of why basic military records do not always contain the truth of a soldier’s life. It is true Davies’ service was rather mundane in a military sense. He enlisted in 1916 aged at 32 while working as a bank clerk in Warwick, Queensland. His assignment as a gunner was quickly changed to the Army Pay Corps on arrival in England in 1917.
Davies would never leave the British Isles, working his way up to Pay Sergeant before returning to Australia in January 1918.
A few months later he was added to the Toowoomba British Football Association honour board. This may have been the entire story except Davies, who enlisted as a single man, changed his next of kin from his brother to his wife Nella Avonwye Kilvert Davies in 1917. This was not a new marriage, as was the case with many soldiers, as the 1911 Wales Census listed the pair as recently married with a month-old daughter. This came to light soon after Davies was discharged when Nella, then living in Wales, wrote to the 2nd Military District base asking for his whereabouts after the military payments on which she and their daughter had lived stopped. By this time Davies was back in Sydney and had discovered he was ineligible for a war pension.
What happened next is unknown, but at some point, Nella moved to Australia. Davies would die in Sydney in 1929 and is buried in Woronora Memorial Park. His cemetery records state Nella was still his wife, while the Sydney Morning Herald published a thank you from her and their daughter Nina for the sympathy given on Davies’ death. Nella and Nina still appeared in the Australian Census in the 1970s living together. While the precise circumstances of their relationship throughout the years is unknown, as it was not unusual at the time for husbands to move overseas to support their families, this episode does show basic military records need to be checked where possible when researching a veteran’s life.