CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘Thousands of Diggers Will Truly Mourn for Pompey’:

Afterwards

MARCH 1931–

THE EXTENSIVE PRESS coverage of Elliott’s death included no mention of suicide. There were discreetly vague references to ‘nervous strain’, a ‘brief illness’, and ‘high blood pressure’; some newspapers reported the cause of death as ‘haemorrhage while undergoing treatment in a private hospital’. Swamping these evasive reports was a torrent of tributes. Among the first to pay their respects publicly were Cam Stewart, Senator Pearce, Prime Minister Scullin, and representatives of numerous returned soldiers’ associations. The West Australian approached Hobbs. ‘I find it difficult to express my sorrow and regret’ at the loss of ‘a very dear friend’, Hobbs replied. ‘He was indeed a gallant and brilliant leader’ of ‘remarkable initiative and determination’, who ‘knew no fear and was ready always to engage in the most desperate enterprise’. Lengthy obituaries dipped into the plentiful fund of Pompey stories. The Argus quoted Bean’s memorable character sketch in the Official History (‘Outspoken, impulsive, excitable, straight as a ruled line’), the Sydney Morning Herald revived Cutlack’s vivid 1918 portrait. ‘Probably no other officer of the AIF is the subject of so many anecdotes and reminiscences’, concluded the Argus obituarist.

On Tuesday 24 March the national parliament adjourned in Elliott’s honour. Latham, now Opposition Leader, said it had been his ‘privilege’ to know Elliott well for over three decades:

He was a fearless man, of remarkable resolution and tenacity of purpose. Above all, he was, throughout his career, a man of unswerving loyalties. His achievements should be an inspiration to all Australians.

In the Senate there were generous tributes from Glasgow and other coalition colleagues. Elliott’s ‘friendly nature’ was emphasised by Labor senators; ‘some of us may not have agreed with him politically’, said one, but ‘we always knew that with him the political fight was over as soon as we left the chamber’. Senator Payne, a Tasmanian Nationalist, described Elliott as

one of nature’s gentlemen, who had always consideration for the feelings of others … I can say, with all sincerity, that no man whom I have ever met in a public capacity appealed to me more than he did.

Another Tasmanian Nationalist, Senator Sampson, an ex-AIF officer and a good friend of Elliott’s, praised his ‘abounding generosity’ to returned soldiers in a heartfelt speech. It may be tempting to discount the sincerity of lavish tributes as inevitable when MPs go on the record about a just-deceased colleague, but Sampson was even more fervent in private. ‘My heart is sore and I am sad’, he told Jane Sampson,

for this morning a wire from Sir George Pearce told us that Pompey Elliott had ‘gone west’. To us, his soldier comrades, it is a great blow and I feel sadly at a loss. He was a rare character, direct and absolutely fearless, clean minded, warm hearted, generous to a fault. In this Senate he was one of the few we have, whom nothing could turn from the right and straight way — true as steel and just as hard when it came to a fight. Those long years of war, when he drove himself by sheer will power, often when physically and mentally tired out, have told their tale and … towards the end he was an old and desperately tired man, worn out … Thousands of diggers will truly mourn for Pompey, they respected him oh so highly as well as loved him, for he was never one to spare himself or forget an officer’s duty — the care of his men … Pompey is at rest — his spirit still lives and will while men of the AIF remain.

The funeral on 25 March, with full military honours, was an extraordinary event. After a brief ceremony at 56 Prospect Hill Road, the coffin was placed on a gun carriage draped with the Union Jack and the general’s cap, sword and medals, and then conveyed to Burwood Cemetery four miles away. There was a sizeable military escort in full dress with regimental bands. It was a sombre journey. The bands played Handel’s ‘Dead March in Saul’ and Chopin’s ‘Funeral March’. Large crowds had assembled beforehand (though it was a workday morning); thousands followed the cortege, or lined the route to the cemetery. Bystanders sobbed as the coffin passed.

One of the youngest onlookers, three-year-old George McKaige, was with his father, a 7th Battalion original who would say proudly, when asked about his war service, ‘I was with Pompey Elliott’. This funeral, and the fervent emotion it aroused in his father and others, remained one of George’s earliest memories: ‘I can still see the plumed horses and the cortege going by’, he said 63 years later. Those following the gun carriage not only included former members of the 15th Brigade and 7th Battalion (a blinded veteran among them); former prime minister S.M. Bruce marched as just another returned soldier. A roll of muffled drums ushered the gun carriage into the cemetery. There was a moving service at the packed graveside, and a thirteen-gun salute from a nearby artillery battery. ‘The boom of the guns had hardly died away, and the blue smoke hung about the hillside still, when the notes of the Last Post … rang out’, reported the Herald; those notes, Jamieson wrote, ‘never sounded so poignant’.

‘I have just returned from his funeral and I have never seen a greater tribute paid to a man’, Bruce assured Kate; ‘it must be some comfort to you to see the universal regard, esteem and even affection in which he was held’. The former prime minister was not the only Pompey admirer to write to Kate after attending the funeral. Another was MacFarland, the former Ormond College master: ‘The funeral today was a wonderful display of the affectionate regard of all sections of the community, and did honour both to our citizens and his memory’. Kate also received a letter from one of Harold’s old colleagues in the pre-war militia:

About 25 years ago we were Lieutenants together in the old 5th Regiment and I have watched and admired his glorious career since, a career covered with honours which compare with the greatest men in the British Empire. Of the lot I believe he valued his DCM as the most precious, but added to these the CB, CMG, DSO, BA, LLM, Major-General and Senator, and it is doubtful if any man has risen to greater eminence purely off his own bravery and efforts. But added to all this and perhaps worth more than all, to you, and to me as his friend was an extraordinarily kindly and gentle nature unspoiled in any way by his honours and position, still exactly the same clean wholesome outlook on life as he had 25 years ago. That to me was his greatness. That phrase of [Bean’s] ‘straight as a ruled line’ was his life’s motto, and I know he never deviated from it one iota … After this marvellous experience today of the love of countless numbers of men of all conditions creeds and callings of life you may well be proud.

Tributes paid at a meeting of Collingwood Council, a Labor stronghold hardly compatible with Pompey’s political outlook, underlined how comprehensive this admiration was. One councillor, a trooper with Elliott in the Boer War, described Pompey as one of the finest men he had ever known; another councillor, who had served under him in the Great War, had no doubt he was the greatest soldier in the whole AIF. Bean dashed off a superb obituary for Reveille:

So Pompey Elliott is gone! No more shall we meet in Collins Street or at Canberra that sturdy figure, the bluff red cheeks, almost without a line, the twinkling, knowing eyes, the confident smile. No more we shall feel that iron grip of a handshake, or catch that decisive voice. The old soldier has laid down his arms. The stalwart figure has gone … we can picture Pompey going round the turns of that long road that we all must travel some day, with his head high, his senses alert, his strong chin set. It is not the first time that he has gone out alone into Nomansland. We know this about Pompey: he goes out as a soldier, utterly unafraid … What a brigade he made of the 15th! … In his exuberant vitality he overworked them, strafed them, punished them; and yet they would do anything he asked of them … [H]istory will do him an injustice if it does not hand him down to posterity as — with very few peers — one of the outstanding and most lovable characters of the AIF.

A few weeks later, amid the press coverage of Anzac Day, was this salute:

At the last Anzac reunion attended by the late General ‘Pompey’ Elliott a Digger appealed to him for help, saying grimly that he was ‘down and out’. At the general’s call a sum was subscribed, and the Digger was fitted out with a pie stall. Out at the Shrine at the dawn muster yesterday he did a roaring trade. Sold out, and with a pocketful of money, he left the ground blessing the name of ‘Pompey’ Elliott.

Tributes from institutions and organisations were numerous. From the Law Institute and Melbourne City Council came salutes to his work as a solicitor. The Melbourne Hospital praised his longstanding contribution as a member of its board of management. His role at Ormond College was acknowledged in similar terms, and Ballarat College was particularly glowing:

No more loyal son of the college ever lived … he has left behind him an enduring memory, and an example of work, of determination, and of loyalty, which will be as beacon light to his fellow-collegians, to ourselves, and to the collegians of the days that are yet to be.

At a school function shortly after his death the main speaker, an officer in the 15th AIF Brigade, described Elliott as the college’s ‘noblest son’ and ‘probably the most outstanding personality in the AIF’. Students who had noticed this ‘quiet, kindly man’ on his frequent visits to the school after the war ‘could have no conception of his extraordinary force and driving power as a commander of a fighting unit’; they should strive to be, like him, ‘as straight as a ruled line’. He was also extolled as an example to follow at a special service ‘in thanksgiving for, and commemoration of, the life and influence of Senator Major-General Harold Edward Elliott’ at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Camberwell, four days after his funeral.

The next day there was a coroner’s inquest into the cause of death. After hearing evidence from the police and hospital staff together with Belle, Watt, and Dr Williams, the coroner formally concluded that Elliott had died from a self-inflicted wound while ‘temporarily insane’. That Belle represented the immediate family at the inquest was no surprise; she had long been the dominant female presence in the practical affairs of the household. Moreover, Kate was struggling to come to terms with it all. Having unquestioningly accepted the appropriateness of a traditional supportive role as the wife of a vigorous and busy celebrity, content to be his ‘sunshine lady’, she was not only overwhelmed and mystified by the way her world had been turned upside down; she was dismayed that all her loving support and desperate endeavours to ease his worries had in the end proved in vain. The children, of course, were also devastated. Too hurt and embarrassed to discuss their pain with friends, 20-year-old Violet and 18-year-old Neil carried their tragic burden largely unaided.

Their anguish was intensified by a newspaper. Smith’s Weekly was lively, iconoclastic, and a self-proclaimed champion of returned soldiers and their interests. More than once Smith’s had expressed itself as a fervent Pompey admirer, and in the wake of his death published another glowing profile headed ‘VALE “POMPEY” ELLIOTT, HERO OF VILLERS BRET’. On 18 April, however, Smith’s revealed, in sensational style, the ‘secret’ of the real cause of death:

A camouflage thrown over the events that led up to the fatal sequel made it appear that the great soldier had died from natural causes as the result of a haemorrhage [but] there was no reason why the circumstances of his passing should have been withheld. Certainly there was no moral stigma in the fact of a man, holding an office of trust and jealously anxious to safeguard his professional honour at a time when the reputation of solicitors was being assailed from all quarters, taking the short road out of life during a mental lapse in which he was under the delusion that the affairs of his clients had suffered shipwreck.

Using the official inquest report, this dramatic exposé quoted the testimony of Belle, Dr Williams, and the hospital nurses to demonstrate the pitiful ‘state of the unfortunate soldier–lawyer’s mind’. While the article included graphic details about his death and previous suicide attempts, the overall tone was admiring and sympathetic. Senior identities at Smith’s maintained that they had published these revelations with the best of intentions, and there was nothing untoward about revealing the sad truth: ‘despairing, unbalanced, perhaps, by some legacy of his campaigns, he found himself driven to the act which closed so tragically a famous fighting career’.

But they completely misjudged their readership. Returned soldiers were appalled. Men who had served under Pompey were livid. To them, these revelations a week before Anzac Day represented crass, sordid journalism at its worst. Violent retribution against Smith’s Weekly was proposed. Agitators were intent on smashing windows at its Melbourne office; some zealots wanted to set fire to it. A band of militants did in fact assemble there in a threatening manner; serious trouble was narrowly averted. A retaliatory article in the Terang Express exemplified the widespread fury. It described the Smith’s exclusive as ‘low and vicious’ journalism, ‘a pitiless exploitation of a dead war hero for pecuniary gain’, by a ‘contemptible’ newspaper that purported to be a caring advocate for returned soldiers yet preferred ‘sensationalism’ and ‘bad taste’ to proper consideration for ‘bereaved relatives’ of a ‘dead hero’. Pompey’s men maintained their rage against Smith’s Weekly for years. Long afterwards ‘Jimmy’ Downing became immediately animated when he noticed his son had a copy of the newspaper:

If you want to waste your money you can buy that paper. If you want to waste your time you can read it. But don’t bring it into this house!

This intense hostility to Smith’s Weekly was further confirmation of Elliott’s enduring esteem in the eyes of his men. It also underlined the jolting impact of his death, especially the manner of it. At a time of such pervasive misery and pessimism, the sudden discovery that their idol, the leader they admired above all others for his bravery and determination, had found it all too hard was a devastatingly bitter pill to swallow. Some refused to digest it at all, finding it simply unthinkable. Some did not find out themselves for years — not everyone perused Smith’s Weekly (or the Terang Express) — and, when they finally discovered the truth, found it incomprehensible. Some found it profoundly disappointing that an inspiring leader of such renowned courage had resorted to such distressingly drastic action. A few were even unhinged by it. Bert Layh, a captain under Pompey at Gallipoli and a 15th Brigade colonel in France, was so disturbed after returning home following the funeral that his wife felt it necessary to lock his children in their bedrooms because he was threatening to kill them.

A proposal for a permanent memorial to Elliott soon gained momentum. It was decided to finance the construction of a headstone over his grave. Fund-raising was difficult, naturally, in the worst of the Great Depression, but the 7th Battalion Association was indefatigable, the RSSILA and various 15th Brigade unit associations involved themselves, and the necessary £200 was eventually collected. The memorial comprised a stone column featuring a sculpted portrait of Elliott; underneath was an inscription listing his decorations, degrees, and commands, and saluting him as a ‘valiant soldier, a great citizen, an upright man’. It was unveiled at another moving Burwood Cemetery ceremony by the youngest 7th Battalion original (and Victorian RSSILA president), ‘Gunner’ Holland, on 24 April 1932.

Elliott’s estate was valued at just under £18,000. This amount, together with his parliamentary salary and earnings as a solicitor as well as revenue from various other sources, reinforced how distorted were his concerns about his own financial position, as distinct from the other worries that contributed to his suicide. But it was clear to Kate, Belle, and the children that without his regular income major changes were unavoidable. They moved to a smaller house in Hawthorn, disposing of 56 Prospect Hill Road and the Frankston property. Violet took up nursing, not because of any pronounced vocational impulse but because it seemed a financially prudent move in the family’s altered circumstances. Neil landed a position at Kodak; he had been a photography enthusiast for years, and Kodak had connections with Scotch College. Belle stayed on with the family following the move to Hawthorn, and was needed more than ever after Kate was skittled by a motorbike when alighting from a tram. She was seriously injured, and there was no way back after this second crushing blow; Kate was a reclusive semi-invalid for the rest of her life.

Until 1934 Neil combined part-time work as a chemist at Kodak with a science course at the University of Melbourne, and crammed into his spare time as many outdoors pursuits as possible. He enjoyed hiking and rowing, and was active in both the scout movement and the militia, where he was a capable machine-gun sergeant. After getting undistinguished results, he discontinued the science course in 1934. He became a full-time film processor at Kodak, and the following year applied for a position as a cadet administrative officer in New Guinea. Testimonials testified to his ‘initiative, endurance, leadership, love of outdoor life’ and suitability ‘in any position where character counts’. One referee urged the adjudicators not to ‘judge him by his manner’ because he was ‘shy with strangers’. Only those who knew him well could properly discern the ‘concentrated power’ within — he was really ‘a replica of his father’. Another referee contacted the Territories minister (Pearce) directly, to emphasise that not only did ‘young Elliott’ have an ‘outstanding’ record; appointing him would be an ‘instalment by way of repayment of the debt which Australia owes to his father’.

His application successful, Neil left for New Guinea in February 1936. He established himself as a respected and resourceful patrol officer; extensions of his service were approved by other ministers who knew his father well, T.W. White and W.M. Hughes. During home leave his relationship with an ex-Fintona friend blossomed, and they became engaged. In July 1939, with developments in Europe foreshadowing the ghastly prospect of another world war, Violet and Belle were visited at the Parkville flat they were now sharing — Kate had died, aged 63, seven months earlier — by a sombre stranger who notified them on behalf of the government that Neil had been killed. The government released a statement, and the press pounced: ‘NATIVES KILL MELBOURNE MAN: AIF GENERAL’S SON DIES IN ATTACK ON NEW GUINEA PATROL’, proclaimed the Sun.

It was one of Neil Elliott’s police assistants who had sparked the skirmish, rebuking and assaulting a woman who refused to comply with his order to clean up the village. The local headman, who was the woman’s father, took umbrage, and launched a mutinous retribution that caught Neil and his staff unawares. The headman confronted Neil, attacking him with a knife, but he managed to get hold of his nearby revolver and shoot this assailant. However, he did not notice two of the headman’s brothers, who each flung a spear accurately — one penetrated his stomach, the other his chest. Wrenching these spears out himself, Neil ignored his wounds while he and his staff concentrated on quelling the uprising. When one of his police assistants was speared in the shoulder, Neil even extracted this spear head with his teeth. After it was all over, Neil collapsed. He died soon afterwards. In due course the perpetrators were caught, tried, and executed. Meanwhile Australia’s Administrator in New Guinea, McNicoll — now installed in the position he had unsuccessfully sought nearly two decades earlier with the strong support of Neil’s father — confidentially notified the government ‘with regret’ that the excessively authoritarian style Neil had sometimes displayed as a patrol officer might have partly provoked the clash. There was no hint of this in the Australian press coverage of the incident, which concentrated on Neil’s Pompey-like bravery and resourcefulness in a tight corner. He ‘acted in accordance with the high standard of courage and devotion to duty which his father set’, Treloar assured Violet.

The shock of her brother’s violent death was yet another terrible blow for Violet. Her closest friends, nursing colleagues especially, wished that she felt more able to open up and unburden herself about her troubles. Like many others, they admired Violet’s special qualities. Upright and decent, sensitive and compassionate, she gave help where it was needed unstintingly; she was fun-loving and down to earth, but there was (as one of her closest friends put it) ‘an aura about her which anyone who had anything to do with her never forgot’. Employees of Holeproof Pty Ltd, where she pioneered industrial nursing, acclaimed her contribution. So did soldiers who met her during her nursing service in the Second World War after having served under her father in the Great War. (Pompey’s influence lived on through those of his men who held senior commands in World War II; most modelled themselves on him. ‘Wish Pompey was still around’ was the gist of many a heartfelt sentiment in the dark days of 1942.)

After the war Violet returned to Holeproof. She became prominent in the development of industrial nursing in Australia, chairing its professional association and addressing international conferences. She continued to provide remarkably generous help to relatives and others in need, particularly her troubled cousin Jacquelyn (George’s daughter, who suicided in 1963). In 1962 she retired from Holeproof because Belle was ailing and needed full-time care. Presented with a gift of £500 from the company in appreciation for decades of outstanding service, she opted to use it not for herself but to establish a course for industrial nurses. In her spare time she taught herself to type, and embarked on a history of her profession in Australia. Maximising awareness of her father’s career was another priority. She spent months combing through his papers with a view to depositing collections in national repositories, the Australian War Memorial in particular. Although severely afflicted with scleroderma, a serious and painful disease, she managed to complete both these projects before her death in 1971.

Despite Violet’s efforts her father has been largely overlooked by posterity. Presumably the manner of his death played its part — suicide, in that era especially, was acutely confronting and, for someone with Pompey’s reputation, incongruous. Admittedly, an Elliott Memorial Lodge was founded in 1947, streets have been named after him in Melbourne and Canberra, there are Elliott Gardens at Charlton, and Ballarat College has an Elliott House; other commemorative gestures have included a wattle tree at the Hawthorn Tea Gardens, and a variety of gladiolus featuring ‘rose pink petals … richly splashed with lemon and wine red’ that was dubbed ‘General Elliott’. Since 1992 there has also been an annual commemoration at his graveside; returned soldiers, their relatives and representatives of Ballarat College have attended this ceremony on 23 March each year. By and large, however, the living legend faded into obscurity. His men, of course, never forgot him. More than half a century after his death, surviving members of the 7th Battalion and the 15th Brigade were dwindling, but he was still in their thoughts, their conversations, even their dreams. Among the wider public, though, awareness of him was meagre. An Australian as famous, inspirational, and historically significant as Pompey Elliott deserves to be better remembered.