Profile

FORSTER, Harold Alfred
(Service number 25360)

Aliases
First Rank Private Last Rank

Birth

Date 22 November 1890 Place of Birth Napier

Enlistment Information

Date Age
Address at Enlistment Elizabeth Street, Petone
Occupation Guard
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status
Next of Kin Police Sergeant FORSTER (father, Police Station, Petone, Wellington; then Timaru; then 418 Jackson Street, Petone
Religion Church of England
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with NZ Armed Forces Served in Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship 13th Reinforcements, Auckland Infantry Battalion, A Company
Date 27 May 1916
Transport Willochra or Tofua
Embarked From Wellington Destination
Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date 14 March 1961 Age 70 years
Place of Death Bellevue Hill, New South Wales, Australia
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery Eastern Suburbs Crematorium, Matraville, Randwick City, New South Wales; ashes Columbarium, Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park
Memorial Reference columbarium K16
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Harold Alfred Forster was born on 22 November 1890 at Napier, the second son of John and Mary Matilda (née Furze) Forster. Harold was educated at Foxton, Feilding and Dunedin schools and perhaps others. As his father was a sergeant of police, the family moved about quite a lot. His mother died at their Petone residence in December 1912 after a long illness. Private H. A. Forster embarked at Wellington with the 13th Reinforcements on 27 May 1916. He returned to New Zealand in March 1918, his father having been stationed in Timaru. The South Canterbury men came from Lyttelton by special train expected mid afternoon on the 19th March.

Harold married Vera Pollard in 1936 at Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He died on 14 March 1961 at Bellevue Hill, New South Wales, aged 70 years. He was cremated at the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium at Randwick, and his ashes are resting in the Columbarium at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park. Harold’s brother Eric also served in World War One.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [10 January 2021]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [19 January 2021]; School Admission record [22 January 2021]; Eastern Suburbs Crematorium, NSW, record (ancestry.com.au) [19 January 2021]; Sun, 13 March 1918, Timaru Herald, 18 March 1918 (Papers Past) [09 April 2015; 16 January 2021]

External Links

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Logo. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

Tell us more

Do you have information that could be added to this story? Or related images that you are happy to share? Submit them here!

Your Details
Veteran Details
- you may attach an image or document up to 10MB