HOUSTON, Peter Calder Bryce

Peter Calder Bryce Houston was the son of William Houston (1838-1895) and his wife, Agnes Sarah Bryce (1844-1900). When he enlisted on 4 July, 1914, Peter Houston was a month away from his thirtieth birthday and married to Lavinia Elizabeth Mills.They had met and married in Brisbane and had a son, John William Peter Houston, born on 7 November, 1910. Another son, William Bryce Houston was born and is on the family tree, but his birth date is unknonn; he died in 1937.

Peter Houston was, by occupation, an audit clerk, a tall man for the times, being just under 6 feet. It is not clear why the couple were in East Melbourne, living at 395 Victoria Parade, but it was here that he enlisted on 4 July, 1914. The puzzle is that he did not leave Australia until 1916, embarking on the HMAT Port Lincoln on 20 October 1916 to Sierra Leone, then on the A30 Borda to  England, landing at Plymouth on 9 January 1917 and marching out to join the 6th Reinforcements/ 2nd Training Battalion. 

On 7 January, Peter Houston was ill and taken to hospital, and it was not until 28 March that he left England for France from Folkestone. On 1 April, he was taken on strength with the 2nd Pioneer Battalion. The Pioneer Battalion were Australian infantry and light engineering units, charged with the task of digging the trneches, establishing communication lines, construction works, putting in light railways to bring food and goods to the areas of battle , and clearing the battlefields. On 14th April, Peter Houston was again sick taken in the field to the 16th Casualty Clearing Station and then to hospital in Rouen. w he was classified by a medical board at Rouelles as unfit for further service. On 18 July, he was sent back to England from Havre, disembarking at Southampton. The problem was tachycardia, where the heart beats up to 100 beats a minute, causing chest pain, a rapid pulse, shortness of breath, and the inability of the heart to transfer sufficient blood to the limbs. It was the end of his military career overseas.

Peter Houston was sent first to the the No 2 Com. Depot at Weymouth, before being returned to Australia, leaving England on 20 December 1917 and landing in Melbourne on 13 February, 1918. .On 15 August, 1918, he volunteered for the Citizens Military Force, the A.A.P.C, garrisoned in the 1st Military District (Brisbane), Australia. From 25/9/1918 - 31/12/18, he was an Acting Corporal; from 1/1/1919 - 1 July, 1919, Acting Sergeant, 2nd Class; and 2/7/1919 - 21/11/1920, Sergeant 1st Class. He was formally discharged from further sevice on 21 September, 1919, having served 252 days with the AIF 2nd Pioneers.

After a brief period of working as an Acting Sergeant of Police in Sandgate in 1925, Queensland, Peter Houston returned to working as a clerk, living with Lavinia in Mountjoy Parade, Manly, NSW, also in 1925, then moving back again to Queensland. in the 1940s and 1950, they lived at Rainbow Bay,  Coolangatta, then in Buxton St, Doomben. By 1963, he was living with Dorothy May, and using his surname, but there appears to be no record of a marriage.  Nor is there a record of his death.