b. 19/09/1895 Wallsend, New South Wales. d. 30/04/1948 Bexley, New South Wales.
William Matthew Currey (1895-1948) was born on 19th September 1895 at Wallsend, near Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. His father, William Robert Currey, was a labourer and later miner, who married Mary Ellen Lang in 1895 in Wallsend, NSW. They would divorce in 1910, when William junior was 15. William junior was their only child.
William was educated at Dudley Public School (where Clarence Jeffries VC also was a pupil) and at Plattsburg Public School, Plattsburg, NSW. He was then employed as a wireworker at Leichhardt, Sydney, NSW. He served for 18 months with 31st (Leichhardt) Infantry Regiment in the part-time Citizen Military Forces. Nearly a year of this service was spent at the German Internment Camp at Holdsworthy, NSW as a guard. His first attempt to enlist in the AIF failed on medical grounds, as he was suffering with varicoceles (enlarged vein in the scrotum). He undertook surgery and enlisted at Showgrounds Camp, Sydney, NSW on 9th October 1916. He was assigned to 4th Light Trench Mortar Battery at Menangle Park, Sydney on 12th October and embarked for Britain with the Light Trench Mortar Battery, 4th Reinforcements from Sydney aboard HMAT A24 Benalla on 9th November. He disembarked at Devonport, Devon on 9th January 1917 and was posted to Perham Down on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. On 6th February he transferred to 53rd Battalion Reinforcements and to 14th Training Battalion, Hurdcott Camp, Wiltshire on 13th June.
William M Currey VC
Private Currey was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the Australian attack at Péronne on 1st September 1918. The 53rd Battalion began taking heavy casualties early in the day, Currey’s company in particular suffering from a 77 mm field-gun firing at very close range. Currey rushed forward under machine-gun fire, killed the whole crew and captured the weapon. When in mid-afternoon the battalion encountered intense fire from a strong point, he worked round the flank of the position and opened fire with a Lewis-gun before rushing the post, inflicting many casualties and dispersing the survivors. His courageous action enabled the battalion attack to proceed. At 3 a.m. next morning he volunteered to warn a company which had become isolated to withdraw: moving out into no man’s land he stood up and called out to the company, the sound of his voice attracting a torrent of enemy fire. After three attempts, during which his respirator was struck and he was gassed, he finally contacted the exposed company which then safely retired.
Despite his gas wound, Currey saw out the war with the 53rd Battalion, arriving back in Australia in March 1919. He was discharged on 2nd April 1919 as medically unfit at Sydney. He was presented with his VC by the Governor General of Australia, Sir Ronald Craufurd Munro-Ferguson PC GCMG. at Victoria Barracks, Sydney on 7th October 1919.
In September 1919, he joined the New South Wales railways as a storeman and next year, on 10th April, married Emma Davies at St Saviour’s Anglican Church, Punchbowl, NSW. They went had two daughters – Joan and Elizabeth. While employed with the railways he became active in the Australian Labor Party and on 16th May 1941 he resigned his post to stand as Labor candidate for Kogarah in the Legislative Assembly. He won the seat, thereby becoming the first VC recipient to enter the New South Wales parliament. He was twice re-elected—in 1944 and 1947—and made the interests of ex-servicemen his particular concern. In 1930-32 he had served with the 45th Battalion in the citizen forces, rising to warrant officer rank, and in 1940-41 with the Australian Instructional Corps.
Currey collapsed suddenly in Parliament House on 27th April 1948 and, survived by his wife and two daughters, died three days later of coronary-vascular disease. He was cremated after a Presbyterian service at Woronara Crematorium, which was attended by four V.C. recipients, George Cartwright, Snowy Howell, Thomas Bede Kenny and William Ruthven. He is commemorated with Currey Street in Canberra, on the VC Recipients plaque in Campbell, ACT, on a commemorative plaque in Speaker’s Square, Australian Houses of Parliament, with Jeffries Currey Memorial Library at Dudley Public School, with the Memorial Wall at Newcastle, NSW, with Currey Memorial Park in Abermain, on a plaque at the Australian War Graves Garden of Remembrance, Rookwood. He also is named on the Leichhardt War Memorial, on a plaque at the Cowra Military Museum, on the VC Recipients Wall at North Bondi War Memorial, on the VC Memorial in Sydney, NSW and with a VC commemorative stone at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire.
His widow attended the 1956 VC Centenary Celebrations in Hyde Park, London alongside seven other NSW VC recipients (Borella, Cartwright, Hall, Hamilton, Maxwell, Partridge, and Rattey), and the widows of five more (Brown, Kenny, Sullivan, Wark and Whittle).
In addition to his VC, he was awarded the British War Medal 1914-20, Victory Medal 1914-19 and George VI Coronation Medal 1937. The VC was presented to the Australian War Memorial by his daughter, Joan Lutton, on 9th May 1981.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL, CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA.
BURIAL PLACE: WORONORA CREMATORIUM, SUTHERLAND, NSW, AUSTRALIA.
ASHES INTERRED IN COLUMBARIUM 15-C.
Acknowledgements:
Richard Yielding – Image of the Rookwood Crematorium Memorial Plaque.
Steve Lee www.memorialstovalour.co.uk – Image of Currey’s VC Medal group at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.