[Editor: This article, regarding the death of Lieutenant Malcolm Chisholm, during World War One (1914-1918), was published in The Sydneian (Sydney, NSW), December 1914.]
The late Lieutenant W. Malcolm Chisholm.
The news that the far-off battlefields of Europe had so soon claimed one of our number as a victim, came as a shock to the community: for members of this school there was added a keen sense of personal loss.
His contemporaries can, at this short distance of time, vividly recall the energetic, laughter-loving, straight-going schoolboy who entered with full zest into all that was best in school life.
Especially will members of the rifle teams live over again historic days on the range, when resolute determination and cheerful pluck were required to recreate the prestige of the school on the firing mound. And masters remember a pupil who combined sweetness of disposition with a quiet dignity and firmness of purpose unusual in a schoolboy.
When he left us it was with a serious sense of his duty to the Empire that he took up a soldier’s life, and we may rest assured that that duty was done faithfully to the end.
Source:
The Sydneian (Sydney, NSW), December 1914, p. 5 (Sydney Grammar School) [PDF; accessible via: “The Sydneian”, Sydney Grammar School]
Editor’s notes:
Lieutenant William Malcolm Chisholm, known as Malcolm, was the first Australian to be killed in World War One; however, he was serving with a British regiment, not with an Australian military unit (his family had moved to England in 1910).
Empire = in the context of early Australia, the British Empire
pluck = bravery, courage, fighting spirit, a strong determination to succeed (especially in a dangerous, difficult, or against-the-odds situation)
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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