History Notes - some Russell family information
History Notes
A rainy day on Saturday threw the markets into confusion - we had a market when you don't have a market! Well done to those who braved the weather. Second hand books and lots of materials set for the society stall will have to wait until June which will probably be freezing!!
Last week we had an enquiry re a member of the Russell family and this week some more information about the same person came in with the history of the Colonna Memorial.
Sergeant Charles Sidney Russell, 33rd battalion, is on the Memorial and one of our members managed to track him down. His mother was Elizabeth Jobson and as he lived at Back Plain he attended the Black Springs School, which was known as Colonna in those days. Incidentally, the site of the school is still known as the school paddock.
At 24 years of age he enlisted to serve with the 33rd Battalion on 12th February, 1916. His papers listed him as 6 foot tall- a farm labourer of Back Plain near Barraba. He sailed for Europe on the Marathon on 4th May, 1916 with a number of other Barraba boys. As a Sgt. he was a Lewis gunner at Messines. He was wounded twice - at Passchendale and Villers-Bretonneux and was reported sick but he survived to return to Australia in January 1919 where he belonged to various organizations such as Lodge No.203 Tamworth.
Charles Russell married Nellie Griffiths in 1921and moved to Sydney where he lived for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 80 years and he and his wife are buried at Liverpool in Sydney.
So far we have had no information about the motorcycle club on the show ground in the 1920's and 1930's -there must be a photo or two somewhere or even a newspaper cutting.
In 2003 Pam Whalley completed and later donated a full set of her husband's family history books to the museum. His mother was Ida Spencer, a member of the Ironbark Spencer family and his grandmother was Minnie nee McKid. There is a lot of history in the eight books. These books have been separated in the couple of moves the society has undergone and two of them have been found amongst some of the maps - has anyone found the others? Pam has put years of work and expense into producing these books and it is a shame that they are not available to people interested in Barraba history.