Can you help find John?

John Henry Stuart was born in January 1882 at Bow, Middlesex, England, and baptised on 5 April 1882. His parents were Adrianus Leonardus (Leon) Stuart and Metta Paulina “Matty” Olifiers. Their children were:

John’s parents had emigrated from the Netherlands to London at somw time before 1875. In the 1891 census, Leon was a commission agent and the 15 year old Adrian was a clerk and they were living at 54 Claremont Road, St. Emmanuel, West Ham, England. Later, the family moved to South Africa and Adrian emigrated to Perth, WA. In 1905, John, aged 23, left England aboard the ship SS Johannesberg bound for Cape Town, South Africa.

By 1913, John was farming at Kellerberrin in Western Australia, 200 km east of Perth, working alongside his brother Adrian and Adrian’s wife Lilian. At the time, farming at Kellerberrin in Western Australia was a rapidly developing, challenging stage of land clearing for the expansion of wheat farming. Farming life was supported by community events, such as picnics, and the local football team, Doodlakine/Kellerberrin.

In June 1915, as the war stretched into its second year and reinforcements were urgently needed, John enlisted at Blackboy Hill, Western Australia. He was 33 years and six months old, a tall, strongly built farmer from Kellerberrin and he joined the newly formed 32nd Battalion as part of C Company.

The 32nd Battalion had been formed at Mitcham, South Australia on 9 August 1915. A and B Companies were made up of recruits from South Australia and C and D Companies came from Western Australia. John did his initial military training at the Blackboy Hill camp, outside of Perth.

At the end of September, the WA soldiers sailed to Adelaide to assemble the whole battalion at the Cheltenham Racecourse Camp. Their training continued until they departed for the camps in Egypt on 18 November 1915 on two troop ships HMAT A2 Geelong and HMAT A13 Katuna. John was on the Geelong.
There was a huge fanfare for their send-off. As reported in The Adelaide Register:

John arrived in Suez on 14 December 1915 and then moved to El Ferdan just before Christmas. A month later, the 32nd marched to Ismailia and then to the major camp at Tel-el-Kebir where they stayed for February and most of March. Tel-el-Kebir was about 110 km northeast of Cairo and the 40,000 men in the camp were comprised of Gallipoli veterans and the thousands of reinforcements arriving regularly from Australia. Their next stop was at Duntroon Plateau and then at Ferry Post until the end of May where they trained and guarded the Suez Canal.

Their last posting in Egypt was a few weeks at Moascar. One soldier’s diary complained of being “sick up to the neck of heat and flies”, of the scarcity of water during their long marches through the sand and he described some of the food as “dog biscuits and bully beef”. He did go on to mention good times as well with swims, mail from home, visiting the local sights and the like.

Source AWM C2081789 Diary of Theodor Milton PFLAUM 1915-16, page 29, page 12

During their time in Egypt the 32nd had the honour of being inspected by H.R.H. Prince of Wales.

After spending six months in Egypt, the call to support the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front came in mid-June. The 32nd left from Alexandria on the ship Transylvania on 17 June 1916, arriving at Marseilles, France on 23 June 1916 and they then immediately entrained for a three-day train trip to Steenbecque. Their route took them to a station just out of Paris, within sight of the Eiffel Tower, through Boulogne and Calais, with a view of the English Channel, before disembarking and marching to their camp at Morbecque, about 30 kilometres from Fleurbaix.

Theodor Pflaum (No. 327) and Wesley Choat (No. 68) wrote about the trip:

They were headed to the area of Fleurbaix in northern France which was known as the ‘Nursery Sector’ – a supposedly relatively quiet area where inexperienced Allied troops could learn the harsh realities of Western Front trench warfare against the Germans. But the quiet times did not last long. Training continued with a focus on bayonets and the use of gas masks, assuredly with a greater emphasis, given their position near the front. The 32nd moved to the Front on 14 July and they were into the trenches for the first time on 16 July, only three weeks after arriving in France.

D Company’s Lieutenant Sam Mills’ letters home were optimistic for the coming battle:

On the 17th they were reconnoitring the trenches and cutting passages through the barbed wire, preparing for an attack, but it was delayed due to the weather. The overall plan was to use brigades from the Australian Fifth Division to conduct a diversionary assault on the German trenches at Fromelles. The 32nd Battalion’s position was on the extreme left flank, with only 100 metres of No Man’s Land to get to the German trenches. As they advanced, they were to link up with the 31st Battalion on their right.

However, their position made the job more difficult, as not only did they have to protect themselves while advancing, but they also had to block off the Germans on their left, to stop them from coming around behind them. On the morning of the 18th, A Company and John’s C Company went into the trenches to relieve B and D Companies, who rejoined the next day. Lieutenant Frederick Stolz described the calm before the storm:

The Zero Hour for advancing from their front-line trenches was to be 5.45 PM, but the Germans knew this attack was coming and were well-prepared. They opened a massive artillery bombardment on the Australians at 5.15 PM, causing chaos and many casualties. The charge over the parapet began at 5.53 PM. A Company and John’s C Company were in the first and second waves to go, B and D were in the third and fourth.

They were successful in the initial assaults and by 6.30 PM were in control of the German’s 1st line system (map Trench B), which was described as “practically a ditch with from 1 to 2 feet of mud and slush at the bottom”.

Source AWM4 23/49/12, 32nd Battalion War Diaries, July 1916, page 11

Unfortunately, with the success of their attack, ‘friendly’ artillery fire caused a large number of casualties because the artillery observers were unable to confirm the position of the Australian gains. The 32nd were able to take out a German machine gun in their early advances, but were being “seriously enfiladed” from their left flank.

By 8.30 PM their left flank had come under heavy bombardment with high explosives and shrapnel. Return bombardment support was provided and the 32nd were told that “the trenches were to be held at all costs”.

Source - AWM4 23/49/12, 32nd Battalion War Diaries, July 1916, page 12

Fighting continued through the night. The Australians made a further charge at the main German line beyond Trench B, but they were low on grenades, there was machine gun fire from behind them from the emplacement at Delangre Farm and they were so far advanced that they were getting shelled by both sides. In the early morning of the 20th, the Germans began a counterattack from the Australian’s left flank, bombing and advancing into Trench A (map).

Given the Australian advances that had been made earlier, the rear Trench E had been left almost empty, which then enabled the Germans to regain that trench and envelop the men of the 32nd. At 5.30 AM the Germans attacked from both flanks in force and with bombing parties. Having only a few grenades left, the only resistance they could offer was with rifles:

What was left of the 32nd had finally withdrawn by 7.30 AM on the 20th. The initial roll call count was devastating – 71 killed, 375 wounded and 219 missing, including John. To get some perspective of the battle, when Charles Bean, Australia’s official war historian, attended the battlefield two and half years later, he observed a large quantity of bones, torn uniforms and Australian kit still on the battlefield. The final impact was that 225 soldiers of the 32nd Battalion were killed or died from wounds sustained at the battle and, of this, 166 were unidentified. Lieutenant Sam Mills survived the battle. In his letters home, he recalls the bravery of the men:

With about 85% of the 32nd Battalion having been killed, wounded or taken prisoner, there was much confusion and great difficulty in working out what had happened to each man. Major efforts were undertaken to find the missing soldiers, but often weeks and months passed with no answers, only uncertainty. For John, however, there were records or witness statements about what happened to him during the battle…he was just “missing’, along with many others.

His sister Elizabeth, who had married and moved back to England, living at 64 Empress Avenue, Woodford Green, Essex, had made enquiries to the Red Cross about John, but there was no news available. She later wrote a thank you letter to the Red Cross and, while she could not contribute financially, she was “most pleased to render assistance” for “flag days or other occasions.”

John was awarded the 1914-15 Star Medal, the British War Medal, the Victory Medal, a Memorial Plaque and a Memorial Scroll. These were sent to his father and later to his brother George in South Africa. John is remembered in the Kellerberrin Branch RSL memorial board and on Panel 6 at the VC Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial, Fromelles, France.

John’s remains were not recovered; he has no known grave. After the battle, the Germans recovered 250 Australian soldiers and placed them in a burial pit at Pheasant Wood. This grave was discovered in 2008 and since then efforts have been underway to identify these soldiers by DNA testing from family members. As of 2026, 181 of the soldiers have been identified, including 41of the 166 unidentified soldiers from the 32nd Battalion.

We welcome all branches of John’s family to come forward to donate DNA to help with his identification, especially those with roots in Bow, London, England, Perth WA, South Africa and the Netherlands. If you know anything of family contacts, please contact the Fromelles Association. We hope that one day John will be named and honoured with a known grave.

Please visit Fromelles.info to follow the ongoing identification project and John’s story.