BARTROP, Ludlow Maynard LaCosta Fox (Service number 13/294)
(South Canterbury Museum 2013/155.37 (#1))(South Canterbury Museum )
Aliases
First Rank
Trooper
Last Rank
Trooper
Birth
Date
14/06/1880
Place of Birth
Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Enlistment Information
Date
14 August 1914
Age
35
Address at Enlistment
Te Kuiti, New Zealand
Occupation
Farmer
Previous Military Experience
Four years school cadets; three years mounted rifles; One year Geraldine Rifles
Marital Status
Single
Next of Kin
Major G.F Bartrop (father), Malvern Rd, Armidale, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Religion
Church of England
Medical Information
Height 5 foot 9 inches, weight 149 lbs, chest 35 inches, fair complexion, grey/blue eyes, grey/black hair, natural teeth good with some artificial, scar on right side of neck, tattoo on left forearm
On Memorial wall, Timaru; Geraldine War Memorial (as L.M. LA C.F Bartrop); Woodbury War Memorial (as L H Bartrop?)
Biographical Notes
Ludlow was born at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, on 14 June 1880, son of Major George Frederick and Julia Ann (nee Smith) Bartrop of Malvern Road, Amidale, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Major Bartrop was regarded as one of the strictest and most honourable of Victoria’s Police Magistrates. Prior to enlisting, Ludlow was working as a farmer for Mr J.C. Roolleston of TeKuiti. In 1911, he had been employed as a labourer on the Orari Estate, South Canterbury. Enlisting on 14 August 1914 at Hamilton, Ludlow was described as being 5 foot 9 inches tall, single, Anglican, weighing 149 lbs, chest measuring 35 inches, of fair complexion, grey/blue eyes, grey/black hair, scar on right side of neck, a tattoo on his left forearm, having good natural teeth and some artificial teeth. Ludlow had had previous military experience having served four years with the school cadets, three years with the Mounted Rifles, and one year in the Geraldine Rifles. He nominated his father in Australia, as his next of kin. Trooper Bartrop, 4th Squadron, Auckland Mounted Rifles, left NZ with the Main Body, from Wellington aboard the Star of India or Waimana, on 16 October 1914, and arrived in Alexandria, Egypt, on 3 December. After service in Egypt, he was posted, with his unit, to the Dardanelles on 28 July 1915. A court of enquiry held at Sarpi Camp on the Island of Lemnos on 31 October 1915, found that it reasonably supposed Tpr Bartrop was killed in action on the 8 August of that year. There being no body found to be buried, he is commemorated on the Chunuk Bair (NZ) Memorial, Chunuk Bair Cemetery, Panel 2. The Personal Items in the Press, dated 5 January 1916, reported: “Major Bartrop has learned through a friend and officer in the same brigade that his son (who was well known throughout Canterbury) died “a gallant soldier’s death“ on the fateful 8th of August. The letter says; when all the officers of his company had been put out of action, Ludlow Bartrop gathered the men together, and led the final charge, and was shot on the top of a Turkish parapet”. After war’s end, his medals, the 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal, plus his scroll and plaque, were finally forwarded to his brother, Leigh La Costa Bartrop “Uplands”, Port Shepstone, Natal, South Africa, as his parents were by this time, deceased. Leigh Bartrop had himself been a civil engineer in New Zealand and went away as a private with a contingent to the Boer War. He was later drafted into the Intelligence Department of the South African Police where he was to hold high rank and, in 1913, married in South Africa, Geraldine Howard Tripp, daughter of Charles Tripp of Orari Gorge.
Sources
Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph database (July 2015); Archives NZ (Personnel File); Press, 5 January 1916 via http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/; NZSG Index v5; NZBDM Historical Records; ancestry.com.au
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