Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“A NEWCASTLE fighting family,” reads the heading on the 1918 pictorial feature in the Sydney Mail.
A father – aged 60 – and five sons between 17 and 27: all in uniform.
That was the Prince family, of James Street, Mayfield, as loyal to the flag as any that ever was.
With so many members at war, the odds on at least one failing to return might have seemed high, but all came home.
Henry Russell Prince returned with the Military Medal, Thomas Henry Prince wrote a well-regarded book about life as sapper with the field engineers.
Only one of the six men died on active service, but that was in the next war, at Darwin in 1942, where youngest son Frederick George Prince succumbed to food poisoning caused by bad beetroot juice.
The proud father of the martial clan was English-born Thomas Philip Prince (1858-1943), a locomotive driver, who understated his age by a decade when he enlisted in March, 1917, and went to France with the 2nd Australian Light Railway Operating Company. Sergeant Thomas Prince endured the rigours of the mud and cold behind the lines at Passchendaele Ridge during fierce fighting in Flanders, winding up being sent back home with chronic rheumatism.
Eldest son Charles William Prince (1889-1974) was in the United States of America when the war began. He was on his way back to Australia to enlist when he heard that the Australian troops were already in Egypt. He joined Kitchener’s Army in England, as a rifleman in the 4th Battalion, and was wounded in France.
He was discharged in August 1919 and came home to Australia to work as a stereotyper for the Women’s Weekly magazine.
Thomas Henry Prince (1891-) was a civil engineer. He enlisted in South Australia in August 1914 and was involved in the defence of the Suez Canal and landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, as a sapper with the 3rd Field Engineers.
He was wounded at Gallipoli and sent to hospital in England. He later trained as an aerial observer, was promoted to lieutenant and sent back to France with the Australian Flying Corps. He was wounded during combat on artillery patrol in September 1918. After the war Thomas Henry published a book, Purple Patches, about his experiences in the engineers.
He was married at St John’s Church in Parry Street, Newcastle, in 1927.
William Herbert Prince (1894-1962) was born in Lismore and enlisted in Newcastle in October 1914. Like his brother Thomas he was at the Gallipoli landing on April 25, 1915 as a signaller in the 13th Battalion.
He fought on the Somme, at Bullecourt and Messines. He was discharged for medical reasons in May 1918 (seemingly against his will) and re-enlisted in October under the assumed name William Henry Green. The war ended before he could get back to it.
He married in Mayfield, Newcastle, in 1932, and worked as a clerk.
Henry Russell Prince (1896-1954) had been a member of the Naval Reserve before World War I and worked for the Public Works Department as a clerk.
He enlisted at Newcastle in July 1915 and served with the 45th Battalion in France.
Not long after arriving at the front he was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery during a night raid on German trenches near Diependaal on October 15, 1916.
Henry survived the 1917 battles of Bullecourt, Messines and Passchendaele and fought throughout the 1918 offensive.
He returned to Australia in 1919, married at Cootamundra in 1939 and died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on April 1, 1954.
Frederick George Prince, (1901-1942) was too young to fight in World War I, but shipped aboard the naval training ship Tingira in September 1916. He was a signaller and served on a number of navy ships, including the Sydney and the Australia. He married at Merewether in 1935.
