In Remembrance
Private Edward Joseph Murphy
Blue Puttee, Regiment # 112
Killed in Action at Beaumont Hamel
July 1, 1916, age 24 years.
The text below is taken from The Rooms web site concerning Military Service Files.
Private Edward Joseph Murphy (Regimental Number 112), having no known last resting-place, is commemorated beneath the Caribou in Beaumont-Hamel Memorial Park.
His prior occupation recorded as that of mail clerk working for $9.00 a week, Edward Joseph Murphy enlisted – at the private soldier’s daily rate of $1.10 - on September 4, 1914, a First Draft recruit. Attesting on October 1, he embarked for England on October 3 of the same year onto the Bowring Brothers’ vessel Florizel. The ship sailed on October 4, the following day, in order to join the convoy carrying the 1st Canadian Division overseas.
Once in the United Kingdom he trained with the Battalion: firstly in southern England and then in Scotland, at Fort George, at Edinburgh Castle, and at Stobs Camp near the town of Hawick, before those final few weeks of training at Aldershot in the summer of 1915.
It is likely that, while at Aldershot, Private Murphy was prevailed upon to re-enlist*, on this occasion for the duration of the war, on or about August 13.
*At the outset of the War, perhaps because it was felt by the authorities that it would be a conflict of short duration, the recruits enlisted for only a single year. As the War progressed, however, this was obviously going to cause problems and the men were encouraged to re-enlist.
Private Murphy was to serve as a soldier in the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during the Gallipoli Campaign. On August 20, 1915, he embarked onto the requisitioned passenger liner Megantic for passage to the Middle East where, a month later, on September 20 – having spent two weeks in British barracks in the Egyptian capital, Cairo - he disembarked with 1st Battalion at Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
On October 1, 1915, Private Murphy was evacuated from Suvla on board HM Hospital Ship Somali to the 15th General Hospital in Alexandria (Egypt) diagnosed as suffering with dysentery. From Alexandria, on November 16, he was embarked onto His Majesty’s Hospital Ship Neuralia to travel back to the United Kingdom for further treatment.
Upon his arrival in England he was admitted on November 27 into the 3rd London General Hospital in the Borough of Wandsworth on the outskirts of the capital city. Private Murphy received treatment and convalescence there until January 24 of 1916.
On that date he was then granted the customary ten-day furlough allowed service personnel upon discharge from hospital – apparently he spent it somewhere in Ireland – after which he commenced a posting to the Regimental Depot in Ayr where he reported to duty on February 2.
The Regimental Depot had been established during the summer of 1915 in the Royal Borough of Ayr on the west coast of Scotland, to serve as a base for the 2nd (Reserve) Batalion. It was from there – as of November of 1915 until January of 1918 – that the new-comers from home were sent in drafts, at first to Gallipoli and later to the Western Front, to bolster the four fighting companies of 1st Battalion.
Private Murphy was one of the two-hundred eleven other ranks and two officers of the 3rd Re-enforcement Draft which disembarked in the Norman capital city of Rouen on March 30, 1916, having sailed there from the English south-coast port of Southampton two days previously, on the 28th, on board His Majesty’s Transport Archangel.
After some days of final training and organizing* at the large Base Depot in Rouen, the contingent moved towards the front, to its rendezvous with 1st Battalion.
*Apparently the standard length of time for this final training had been ten days – although this was to become more and more flexible as the War progressed - in areas near Rouen, Étaples, LeHavre and Harfleur that became known as the Bull Rings.
On April 15, a detachment from Rouen of two-hundred eleven other ranks – accompanied by two officers – reported to duty with 1st Battalion already billeted in the village of Englebelmer some three kilometres behind the lines of the Western Front.
Private Murphy is documented as being among that number, a contingent which included
not only personnel from Ayr, but others from the Middle East whose departure from there
had been delayed or otherwise disrupted.
Only two days prior, on April 13, 1st Battalion had itself
marched into the village of Englebelmer – thus completing a
month-long transfer from Egypt – where it was billeted,
welcomed those re-enforcements of the 15th, and, on that
same day, was sent – along with the new-comers to work in
the communication trenches not so very far away.
The Newfoundlanders were also soon to be preparing for the British campaign of that
summer, to be fought on the ground named for the meandering river that flowed – and
today still flows - innocuously through the southern part of the region to which it lends its
name, the Somme.
The son of Matthew and Mary F. Murphy of Mundy Pond Road,
Private Murphy was reported as missing in action on July 1,
1916, at Beaumont-Hamel, while serving with ‘A’ Company
during the fighting of the first day of the Somme. Some thirty
weeks later, on December 31, Private Murphy was officially
presumed dead.
Edward Joseph Murphy had enlisted aged twenty-two years.
Private Edward Joseph Murphy was
awarded the 1914-1915 Star, as well as
the British War Medal and the Victory Medal (Inter-Allied War Medal).