Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Alfred Thomas Sullivan was born on 17 May 1893 at Christchurch, the first-born of Thomas and Amelia Mary (née Rump) Sullivan. He probably started school at the Marist Brothers School in Christchurch in 1898. Perhaps, he soon went to Woolston School, where Alfred Sullivan received a Standard I Boys Attendance prize in 1899 and a Standard II prize in 1900. He was certainly the Alfred Sullivan who received a prize for first place in Standard III at the Kaiapoi Borough School in 1902 and for second place in Standard IV in 1903. In 1904 it was a prize for first place in Standard V and an Attendance prize. Thomas and Amelia had moved from Sydenham, Christchurch, to Kaiapoi in about 1899. By 1914 Alfred was a farm labourer at Waihao Forks, where Mary Carr also lived. He was of Waimate when he married Mary Teresa Carr, sister of the three Carr brothers killed in action in 1918. Alfred and Mary married on 7 July 1915 at Waimate. Their first child – Margaret Doreen Sullivan – was born on 2 May 1916 at Cheviot.

Early in the war, Alfred had already contributed to Patriotic Funds through the Waimate collections and to the Red Cross Fund. He had not registered for compulsory military training but had volunteered. Of Cheviot, he registered in the Kaiapoi district in May 1916, one of the 43 fit men of 76 enlistments in the Kaiapoi Group in mid May 1916. On the night of 27 June 1916, ninety-eight men of the Eighteenth Reinforcement draft from the Kaiapoi area paraded at King Edward Barracks, before leaving for Lyttelton on their way to the training. At the Barracks the men were inspected by the officer commanding the Canterbury Military District. They were complimented on their good physique, were reminded of the need to observe good discipline, and were wished good luck. The Mayor complimented the Kaiapoi area on sending such a fine body of men to the training camp, and on supplying a large surplus. On behalf of the citizens of Christchurch he wished them God-speed and a safe return. The men marched to the Railway Station, headed by the Cadets Bugle Band, and accompanied by members of the. Citizens’ Defence Corps. Included in the official list (Infantry) was Alfred Thomas Sullivan. There had been a large crowd at the Kaiapoi railway station in the afternoon to bid farewell to the Kaiapoi men. No speeches were delivered but round after round of cheers were given as the train moved off.

Alfred Sullivan enlisted on 28 June 1916 at Trentham. A grocer in the employ of his father, married and Roman Catholic, he named his wife as next-of-kin – Mrs A. T. Sullivan, 162 Wordsworth Street, Christchurch – Waihao Forks, Waimate, later of 25 Harris Street, Waimate. He stood at 5 feet 6 inches, weighed 11 stone 4 pounds, and had a chest measurement of 33¼-37 inches. His complexion was fair, his eyes blue and his hair brown. His sight, hearing, colour vision, heart and lungs were all normal, his limbs and chest well formed, and his teeth fair. He had had only infantile ailments, had no distinctive marks, was free of diseases, was vaccinated and had had not fits. He was, thus, in good bodily and mental health. Private A. T. Sullivan embarked with the Canterbury Infantry Battalion of the 18th Reinforcements, departing from Wellington for Plymouth, England, on 11 October 1916 per the “Tofua”. Having disembarked on 29 December 1916 and marched into Sling, on 11 February 1917 he left Sling Camp for France where he joined the 1st Battalion of the 13th Company. For nine days in June 1917, he was attached to the New Zealand Machine Gun Corps.

He suffered gunshot wounds to his right eye and nose on 1 October 1917 and was admitted to the No. 10 Australian Field Ambulance. Embarking for England by Hospital Ship on 10 October he was admitted to Walton on Thames Hospital in England (Casualty List No. 694) and on 16 October transferred to Manor Hospital at Epsom. On 5 December - more than two months later – he was transferred to the Convalescent Hospital at Hornchurch where his progress was favourable. But he was classed unfit by the Medical Board, on 6 March 1918.

Alfred was one of 843 men and women who returned to New Zealand in Draft No. 160 by the “Athenic”, embarking on 1 April 1918 at Glasgow and arriving back on 16 May. The Waimate mayor received word on the afternoon of 18 May that A. T. Sullivan (Waihao Forks) and four other local men would reach Waimate by special train on 19 May. Alfred intended to reside at Waihao Forks or Waimate. He was discharged on 1 January 1919, being no longer physically fit for war service, and sometime after was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

On 26 March 1920, however, he found himself in the Trentham Military Hospital. Alfred did not get long to spend with his wife and young family of two daughters and two sons, the eldest born just a few months before he left for the Front. He died on the last day of 1927 at the Rannerdale Soldiers’ Home in Christchurch, of tuberculosis of the vertebrae and lungs, aged 34 years. “A patient sufferer at rest.” He was buried in the Waimate Old Cemetery after a service at the Waimate Catholic Church and was accorded RSA honours at his funeral. There was a large muster of returned soldiers at the burial. A firing party fired three volleys over the grave and the Last Post was sounded. Alfred had signed a brief Will on 2 August 1927 while at Rannerdale Home, bequeathing all to his wife, Mary Theresa Sullivan, absolutely. A nursing sister testified to his death at Rannerdale Home.

His wife, who lived for more than 35 years as a widow, died on 6 June 1963 at Christchurch and was buried with Alfred at Waimate after a service at the St Patrick’s Church there. Mary and her family remained at Waimate until the mid-1930s, when she moved to Christchurch. Alfred went away a fit and healthy young man, whose responses to enlistment questions depict an honest, thoughtful, open character, only to suffer much on his return. Alfred and Mary were survived by two daughters and two sons. Their second daughter, Mary Rose Sullivan, had died at Waimate on 21 November 1925, aged five years. Doreen Margaret (Mrs Horler) who died in 2000, Mary Rose, Thomas Edward (Tom), who died in 1985, and John Alfred, who died in 1997, are all buried at Waimate. The youngest daughter, Marie Kathleen (Mrs Wells) died in 2019. Mary Sullivan and her children remembered “our dear husband and father”, Alfred Thomas Sullivan, faithfully and constantly, inserting In Memoriam notices in the Waimate Daily Advertiser or the Timaru Herald and later the Press for many years. Sometimes his parents, brothers and sisters also inserted a notice in memory of Alfred and his little daughter, Mary Rosa – “To memory ever dear.” Thomas Sullivan died in November 1943 at Timaru and Amelia Mary Sullivan in July 1949 at Timaru, both buried at Timaru.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [16 October 2013]; NZ Defence Force Personnel Records (Archives NZ Ref. AABK18805 W5553 0110645) [10 June 2014]; Waimate Old Cemetery burial records (Waimate District Council) [04 November 2013]; Lyttelton Times, 22 December 1899, 23 December 1903, 28 June 1916, 19 October 1917, Press, 19 December 1900, 22 December 1902, 23 December 1904, 27 May 1916, 6 January 1928, 31 December 1937, 31 December 1938, 31 December 1940, 26 November 1943, 9 July 1949, 7 June 1963, Waimate Daily Advertiser, 1 June 1915, 10 & 18 May 1918, 27 November 1924, 21 November 1925, 31 December 1928, Timaru Herald, 2 June 1915, 20 October 1917, 10 November 1917, 21 November 1919, 31 December 1929, 31 December 1930, 31 December 1931, 31 December 1932, 30 December 1933, 31 December 1934, 32 December 1935, 31 December 1936, 26 November 1943, Sun, 28 June 1916, Evening Post, 8 May 1918 (Papers Past) [04 & 05 November 2013; 27 June 2014; 06 January 2015; 14 January 1919; 21 October 2022; 01 November 2022]; Timaru Herald, 3 January 1928, 7 June 1963 (Timaru District Library) [09 June 2014]; Waimate Old Cemetery headstone transcriptions (South Canterbury Branch Cemetery Records microfiche) [2 May 2014]; School Admission Records (Canterbury Branch NZSG); NZ BDM Indexes (DIA historical records) [18 December 2014]; NZ Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com.au) [21 December 2014; 21 October 2022]; Probate record (Archives NZ/Family Search) [01 May 2015]

External Links

• Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph record
• Military personnel file

Related Documents

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