General News
8 February, 2025
Veterans' Voices: Edward Ellis Henty
Edward Ellis Henty was born in Portland on December 4 1887.
He was the youngest of three sons of Walter Thomas Henty and Annie Margaret (Campbell) Henty.
Edward and another son, Wilfred, both died young.
Walter farmed in the Victoria Valley before moving to The Caves near Hamilton in the late 1890s.
Edward, known as ‘Ted’, attended Hamilton State School and Hamilton and Western District Boys’ College.
On finishing school Edward worked in a Hamilton bank as a clerk.
He was a member of the Hamilton branch of the Australian Light Horse for seven years after joining around 1907.
He became a commissioned officer and reached the rank of lieutenant around the time World War I began.
Edward enlisted on September 21 1914.
The 8th Light Horse Regiment, of which Edward was a soldier, was formed at Broadmeadows Camp in Victoria on September 23 1914 as the 6th Light Horse Regiment.
A reorganisation of the rapidly expanding AIF in early October resulted in the 6th being renumbered the 8th and becoming part of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade.
Edward trained at Broadmeadows Camp, where he observed that the men of 8th Light Horse were missing basic comforts such as gifts from the public that other men there were receiving.
In a letter he wrote to the Hamilton Spectator, published on October 20 1914, he requested donations of warm clothing, small comforts and instruments for a regiment band.
Money donated to the Henty Band Appeal and enabled them to obtain instruments to form the 8th Light Horse Regiment Band that played in front of the Governor General of the time.
Edward Ellis Henty married Florence Grace Pearson, formerly of Adelaide, on Wednesday November 18 1914.
Edward then returned to Broadmeadows and continued preparations for the regiment’s departure overseas.
He was well liked by the men under him and by his fellow officers, including Elliot Graton, Thomas Redford and Keith Borthwick.
The 8th Light Horse sailed on February 25 1915 for Egypt on HMAT Star of Victoria, arriving on March 14 1915.
Edward was a young officer acting as second in command of the Light Horse with the Second Expeditionary Forces.
In May they were sent to Gallipoli but without their horses.
After almost two months at Gallipoli, Edward was again in Egypt, hospitalised with gastroenteritis.
However, he was back in the trenches two weeks later.
On August 7 1915 at Gallipoli, the 8th Light Horse Regiment made up the first two waves over the trenches in a battle known as the charge at The Nek.
Edward was in the first wave and took fatal machine gun fire.
Killed with him were Elliot Graton, Thomas Redford and Keith Borwick.
Edward was only 27 years of age and his last rank was lieutenant.
Exhausted and under-strength, the regiment then played a defensive role until it finally left the peninsula on December 20 1915.
A book by John Hamilton, Goodbye Cobber, God Bless: the fatal Charge of the Light Horse, Gallipoli, contains a letter written by Bunney Nugent from the 8th Light Horse in reply to Edward’s mother Annie.
Annie had asked after Edward’s black horse.
Bunney replied that he had the “black mare and will not let anyone ride her”.
Before he headed overseas, charging over a trench and running toward the enemy would not have been how Edward would have imagined dying.
Rather, charging at a gallop on his black mare from home would have been closer to his expectations.
Florence was about six months pregnant and living at the Henty home The Caves when she received the news.
Word soon spread throughout the district of the loss of one of Hamilton’s finest.
Only nine months after passing through the doors of Christ Church, Hamilton, on the joyous occasion of his wedding, Edward’s friends again filed in, but as they attended a memorial service for their mate Ted their joy had turned to grief.
A tablet was unveiled at Portland St Stephen’s Anglican Church known as the Henty memorial plaque.
About 10 weeks after Edward’s death, on October 21 1915 Florence gave birth to a boy.
She named him Edward Ellis Henty after the father he never knew.
Her baby and a pearl necklet were among the few reminders of her beloved Ted and their short time together.
Edward Ellis Henty’s name appears on panel 6 at Australian War Memorial and on the Hamilton Honour Roll and War Memorial.
His is buried in Ari Burnu Cemetery, Gallipoli, in Row A, Grave No 14.
The local area lost 16 8th Light Horsemen from the 88 who left from the region.
With thanks: Sally Bertram, RSL Military History Library. Contact Sally at sj.bertram@hotmail.com or call 0409 351 940.
