Lyall Howard

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Lyall Falconer Howard (1896-1955) was a World War I veteran, engineer and business owner and the father of former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard.[1] He was born and raised near Maclean in the Clarence River region of northern New South Wales.[2]

Contents

[edit] World War I

The diggers of the 3rd Pioneer Battalion prepare to board the HMAT Wandilla at Port Melbourne, bound for the Western Front. 6 June 1916
The diggers of the 3rd Pioneer Battalion prepare to board the HMAT Wandilla at Port Melbourne, bound for the Western Front. 6 June 1916

During World War I, Lyall Howard was known as a proud patriot.[3] On 16 January 1916, at age 19, he signed up to the Australian Imperial Force. As soldier number 802, he was assigned to the 3rd Pioneer Battalion, earning a wage of eight shillings per day.[1] Records show he had attempted to sign up on a previous occasion, but was rejected because his height of 157cm was deemed too short.[1] Private Lyall Howard left Port Melbourne aboard the HMAT Wandilla on 6 June 1916, and was shipped to the Western Front.[1]

Lyall kept a war diary, making handwritten notes of his experiences on the front line. The entries were always brief: "Shoved in old barn", "Inoculated again", "First day in trenches".[4][5]

One laconic entry underscored the horrors the soldiers faced: "Will wounded and dies". Will was Lyall's best friend.[4][5]

Lyall's father, Walter Howard, enlisted in the 55th Battalion of the 5th Division and was also transferred to the battlefields of Europe.[6] In an extraordinary situation of chance during the mass movement of troops near the village of Clery, France, the father and son's paths crossed. Against the odds, Lyall and Walter met on the eve of the Battle of Mont St. Quentin in what has been described as a one-in-a-million handshake in the battle zone.[7]

An entry in Lyall Howard's diary, dated 30 August 1918, simply reads: "Met dad at Clery."[7]

Lyall's son, the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard recounts: "There's just this pithy or laconic entry in the diary. It's just so Australian - 'Met dad at Clery'. They didn't verbalise their experience in the way men do now. It's one of the big changes in Aussie blokes. I think it's a good thing. They don't bottle it all up, but they did in those days."[7]

In battle, Lyall Howard was wounded by a mustard gas attack in Passchendaele and spent 10 weeks in hospital.[1][8]

[edit] Between the Wars

After the war, Lyall worked as a fitter and turner for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), until retrenched in during the Depression.[8][3]

In 1925, he married an office worker, Mona Kell.[8] Lyall and Mona Howard lived in a comfortable Californian-style bungalow at 25 William Street, Earlwood.[9] Their first son, Walter (junior), was born in 1926, followed by Stanley (1930), Robert (1936), and the youngest, John Howard in 1939.[9]

In 1926, Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes declared that he would make "New Guinea for the returned serviceman". He offered Australian ex-servicemen land parcels in New Guinea at very generous prices.[8] Like many other ex-servicemen, Lyall Howard took up the offer and acquired two copra plantations on Karkar Island in New Guinea valued at the time at more than £100,000 (over AUD $4 million in today's currency) where 200 native labourers worked.[8]

Two Australian companies, Burns Philp and the trading house W. R. Carpenter and Co Ltd managed many of the plantations on behalf of the ex-servicemen. The companies found that it was cheaper to pay the ex-servicemen a yearly rent to lease the land rather than purchase it themselves. The controversial but legal scheme became known as "dummying", and was common at the time.[8]

Sir John Middleton, a former PNG MP and son of returned Australian serviceman planter Max Middleton said

"It's nothing against Howard's father because everyone was doing it,"
"There was no disgrace in it. Dozens of people did it".

Even a one-armed lift operator at Burns Philps' office in Sydney was a big plantation owner on paper.[10]

Lyall with his father Walter Howard ran two petrol stations where in later years John Howard worked as a boy. One was located on the corner of Ewart Street and Wardell Road in Dulwich Hill,[8] and from 1938 onward they owned a second, named Prince Edward Service Station, on the opposite side of the Cooks River. [11][9]

[edit] WW2 onwards

During World War II, Lyall was strongly against appeasement, and an admirer of Winston Churchill.[12] Both Lyall and Mona Howard were enthusiastic supporters of the Liberal Party of Australia from its foundation in 1944,[3] and Lyall became a paid member.[9]

According to a Sydney Morning Herald report published on 7 January, 1989, there were some suspicions in the Howard family that Lyall was a member of the New Guard, an unofficial paramilitary organisation which stood for "unswerving loyalty to the throne, sane and honourable government, suppression of any disloyal and immoral elements in government, industrial and social circles, [and] the full liberty of the individual"[3]

He died of chronic bronchitis in 1955, at the age of 59.[1][8] John Howard, who was age 16 at the time, remembers: "You never think at that age that your father was going to die. I'd always hoped that my father would be proud of me ... My mother lived to see me become treasurer and go into politics, came to my first Budget, had dinner at The Lodge. My dad, my dad didn't, unfortunately."[9]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f A foreign field that still touches Australia. The Age (2006-07-01). Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
  2. ^ Military Record 12079842. National Archives of Australia (1916-01-27). Archived from the original on 2006-04-25. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.
  3. ^ a b c d By the people, for the powerful. The Sydney Morning Herald (2005-11-26). Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  4. ^ a b PM's father sums up inspiration for author's epic endeavour. The Canberra Times (2006-11-05). Retrieved on 2007-09-01.
  5. ^ a b Carlyon, Les (2006-11-01). The Great War. Pan Macmillan Australia, 880. ISBN 9781405037617. 
  6. ^ Sibley, David (22 September 2005). "Blood ties to World War I". Air Force News 47 (17). 
  7. ^ a b c One-in-a-million handshake on the front line. The Sydney Morning Herald (2004-04-24). Retrieved on 2007-08-30.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h The secret Howard plantations. The Sydney Morning Herald (2006-06-10). Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
  9. ^ a b c d e The boy who would be PM. The Age (2007-07-21). Retrieved on 2007-08-23.
  10. ^ PNG coconut scam nets Howard's dad The Gold Coast Bulletin, Business weekend section July 14, 2007.
  11. ^ Tin soldered for the King in Howard's home. The Sydney Morning Herald (2006-06-19). Retrieved on 2007-08-29.
  12. ^ Garran, Robert (2004). True Believer: John Howard, George Bush and the American Alliance. Allen & Unwin, Page 10. ISBN 1741144183. 

[edit] References

  • Birnbauer, Bill, "Rise Of A Common Man", The Age, 4 March 1996
  • Cockburn, Milton, "What Makes Johnny Run", Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January 1989
  • Grattan, Michelle, "PM Retraces His Family's War Footsteps", Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 2000
  • Hamilton, John, "Howard relives family legend", Sunday Herald Sun, 30 April 2000
  • Henderson, Gerard, "The Lasting Legacy Of Anzac", Sydney Morning Herald, 23 April 1996
  • Stevens, Melissa. "John Howard's secret criminal past (or why convict heritage is cool)", Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-18. 

[edit] External links