Ernest Alfred McCure was born in Colac on 12 October 1893. He was the son of Alfred Ernest McCure and his wife, Clara Eve, nee Coney. In 1914 the family moved to Ararat where his father was a veterinary surgeon, and was the first to discover an outbreak of anthrax in Australia. He was member of the local borough council for seven years. Ernest named his mother as his next of kin at enlistment on 20 August 1914. He was a joiner by trade and had been apprenticed to Buttons & Sons for five years. A sturdy boy, he was 5ft 6ins and 11½st. He had a fair complexion, brown eyes and fair hair. He was appointed to the 2nd Field Artillery, 6th Battery as a driver and sent to Broadmeadows for training. He embarked for Egypt on 20 October 1914 aboard HMAT Shropshire. On the Embarkation Roll he stated that his address at date of enrolment was 30 Berry Street, East Melbourne. (Another of our volunteers, Thomas Charles Edward Godfrey, also lived at this address.) This was a boarding house and no doubt was an address of very short duration for Ernest.
He joined the MEF forces at Alexandria on 8 April 1915 for transport to Gallipoli. In November 1915 he developed a headache and high temperature and was sent to hospital in Malta. Two months later he was diagnosed with rheumatism. He was returned to Australia from Malta via Suez on 28 January 1916 aboard HS Kanowna for six months change, but was discharged medically unfit on 29 May 1916.
On 10 February 1926 Ernest wrote seeking replacement medals as the originals had been destroyed when his house had burnt down. Thirty years later, on 12 August 1955, Ernest wrote from Lydiard Street, Ballarat, seeking replacement discharge papers as ‘I was burnt out in Church St., Ararat in approx. 1939 and lost everything including my discharge paper.’
After his death Ernest’s sister wrote a letter giving a rather different slant to his experience in the war:
333 Barkly St, Ararat, 18 April 1967
To the Officer in Charge
Dear Sir
So once again inquiries are being made into Ernest Alfred McCure’s service for his Country that is what we have heard as a family from the day he was invalided home from hospital after service on Gallipoli. He was badly injured when falling from boat under heavy Turkish fire when our Australians had to retreat. My brother was taken straight to Hospital, head badly damaged, he could not remember his name and got into a Sydney bed by mistake. Was told he could not land in Melbourne. The shock brought recovery to his memory. He knew his family had travelled 300 mls to meet him – so he dressed and swam to shore, greeted us in dripping wet clothes. In that condition we had to travel with him to friends in Elsternwick. They advised him to return to boat while we pleaded with him to come home he was so in need of treatment. However he was honest and returned to boat, taken to Sydney – dismissed without a penny in his pocket or his luggage (which to this day we never got). Strangers in Sydney stood to him for a meal and price of urgent telegram asking his father to send £10 at once. Our father was a surgeon and out on call and he knew we would not have opened his telegram hence the urgent. A standing disgrace to Australia – An Anzac - invalided home, one of the first to land on Gallipoli. I once asked (he has been dead 3yrs) for a bronze plaque for his grave – but as usual – refused – kept being told as you have told me – inquiries are being made, write to so and so – and on it went – till we gave up in disgust. Men from England and Jerusalem told him he was too honest. They saw very little fighting and were never in Gallipoli – and said you did not know the tricks of the trade. We got our full soldiers’ pension without any trouble. So if this request is refused – and I am his next of kin – my name appears in his will – I am going to give Truth the complete details and see what people’s reaction is.
Yours faithfully
Grace E McCure
The Argus reported that 124 sick and wounded Victorian soldiers disembarked from the Kanowna at Port Melbourne on 10 March 1916 before proceeding to Sydney.
Grace wrote again on 18 September 1967 with similar complaints but added a little more detail about Ernest’s later life:-
… He [their father] was an R. Surgeon and said I’ve no time to answer questions and the red tape – I’ll keep the lad till he can work. – Finally he got a job on the railway – light office work then married – and being in need of nursing care his wife ordered him out after getting him to sign his half the home over to her – He came to me ill and homeless and never worked again -
He died in Ballarat in 1962. His wife, Veronica Vera McCure, nee Mason, predeceased him, dying in 1939 and was described in the death notice as his beloved wife. The same notice showed him to be working at the Victorian Railways and there was no reason to suspect they were not living together at that time.
