No.61  Private Samuel Bryant

When the war broke out in August 1914, Samuel Bryant was farming in the Werribee district.

Samuel was born in North Melbourne in 1873 and when he enlisted on 24 February 1917 in Melbourne he was 44 years old.

War Service
He was sent to the recruits' battalion at the famous Broadmeadows Camp in Melbourne for basic training and then was attached to the Machine Gun Squad, 1st Battalion and the Machine Gun Depot at Seymour, around 100 kilometres north of Melbourne, in May of the same year.

By 1915, Seymour was fast replacing Broadmeadows as the state's main training facility for Victorian soldiers who joined the AIF.

Private Bryant farewelled his wife, Nellie, and sailed from Melbourne aboard HMAT Suevic, arriving in Liverpool, England in late August 1917.

It would appear that Private Bryant spent much of his war service in England, attached to the 9th Training Battalion and then the 3rd Machine Gun Battalion.  He was based at Durrington in Wiltshire, about 25kms from the main ANZAC transiting and training facility at Codford, where thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops were based as they awaited their orders to proceed to the front line in France.

In September 1918, Private Bryant transferred to the 38th Battalion. He returned to Australia in mid-January 1919 and was discharged from the Army in Melbourne.

He died in Doncaster, Melbourne in August 1947, aged 74.

Medals and Entitlements:

• British War Medal