Grave of WWI Aussie soldier dedicated at Gunnewin on Australia Day 2021

The life and service of World War I soldier Walter Newbury Ford was honoured by a small group at his lonely burial site west of Gunnewin, a soldier settlement near Injune.

The unassuming ceremony was the culmination of an 18-month quest to identify the last resting place of the man and give him a headstone to remember him by.

The mission began in April 2019 when Injune grazier Bruce Cosh got in touch with Roma RSL member Jim Robinson to let him know that a neighbour, Cliff Harland was concerned that he had an unmarked grave of a WWI soldier on his property, which could fade into obscurity without proper recognition.

While they didn't know the soldier's name, they knew he was buried on Lot 16, now part of Mr Harland's Glen Olive acreage.

That was enough for Beryl Giles, the sister of another Roma RSL member Noel Kerr and a member of Roma's Family History Society, who had recorded the man's passing in a book of WWI casualties from the district.

Vital maps and newspaper clippings were searched for more information, along with the knowledge of yet another Injune property owner, Bill Stanford.

As well as being born in the area and knowing it like the back of his hand, he queried his 90-year-old aunt Sylvia Thomas, who had mustered the property on horseback as a young girl.

According to Mr Robinson, she remembered the locality of the grave site as being on a fence line in a stand of trees in a direct line from the dairy built on the lot to a dam at the bottom of the hill.

"The five of us - Cliff, Bill, Bruce, Paddy (Noel) and myself - walked the area," he said.

"We found the foundations of both the dairy shed and the workman's hut, but walked the wrong fenceline.

"You must forgive us - Walter Newbury Ford died in 1920, nearly 100 years ago."

On the second attempt they found the remains of a fenceline and strainer post on the right line, complete with a stand of trees.

"It was as good as we were ever going to get," Mr Robinson said.

That wasn't the end of the group's obstacles; they had to obtain permission from a direct descendant of the deceased man, 100 years later, to mark his gravesite.

Ford was born in Somerset, England in 1885, coming to Australia sometime prior to the outbreak of war, and joining up for military service at Toowoomba on August 9, 1915, at the age of 30.

Ms Giles was able to locate a cousin many times removed in England, Jon Turner who happily gave the required permission.

The group then enlisted Gunnewin grazier Graham Girle, a local Injune-born sculptor, to arrange for a headstone for the grave, plus stone markers for the site of the dairy and hut, incorporating a brass plaque arranged by Roma RSL president George Mehay.

The group assumed Ford, who had been in the 9 Infantry Battalion fighting in France, was the soldier settler who had drawn lot 16 in the ballot, but research showed it had been drawn by Cyril George Iago.

Ford was Iago's farm laborour and a Western Star report of June 16, 1920 records his sad end.

"News was received by the Roma police on Sunday that a returned soldier named Walter Ford, had left his selection portion 16, Springbok, on Friday morning last to go shooting, and had not been heard of since," it said.

"The efforts of a search party had been unsuccessful owning to rain having obliterated the tracks, but on Monday a report was received that Ford's dead body had been found about ten miles from the 51 mile, and that Ford had apparently died from a gun shot wound.

"The police are making investigations."

Mr Robinson said his gunshot wound to the forehead had been self-inflicted.

"You had no grave on which to place flowers," he said. "This today is a conscious choice by those of us here to remember you."

Following the dedication of the grave, people moved to the memorial at the former railway town of Gunnewin, set up postwar to service the soldier settlement blocks and its dairy industry, for a similar commemoration there.

The comprehensive record erected beside the Carnarvon Highway is the work of many, including Graham Girle and Malcolm Douglas, the latter having a grandfather who worked on the Burma-Changi railway as a Japanese prisoner-of-war in World War II.

One whose name is listed on the land scheme plaques at the site is Malcolm Dingwall, a Light Horseman who took part in the triumphal charge against Turkish forces at Beersheba in 1917.

His grandson Greg Stewart, along with wife Sandy Stewart and fellow 11^th Light Horse member Hayley Forbes, provided the military accompaniment for the event.

"You can't get much more Australian than this," Mr Stewart said.