Jessie & Arthur Merritt
Thomas Merritt and Charlotte Phillips were both born in Creswick as were other family members and each had two brothers who are recorded as having served - Jesse and Arthur Merritt Jesse and Arthur were nos 6 and 7 Merritt sons and the last to be born.
My brother Doug was in Ballarat for a cycling event a couple of years ago and rode to Creswick the day prior and took a number of photographs of family graves etc. He has recently transferred these to my new computer and I note that the memorial column on which Jesse and Arthur are listed has Merritt H.A. Doug has queried the second initial with me a number of times but I knew Arthur’s military record only listed him as Arthur. Jesse had been named for his father and I think they had exhausted choosing two names for each son by them.
Arthur’s war record has his named listed as H. A. is an error and am aware that at the time of his enlistment there were no family members with the H. initial apart from another brother Robert Henry (Bob) who did not serve.
Jesse and Arthur subsequently and jointly took up soldier settlement land at Kingston so this was a place that they had known. They later disposed of this and Arthur moved to and worked in Ballarat (he had two daughters but no grandchildren) and Jesse, who had limited mobility due to his thigh being damaged by shrapnel, moved to live with his sister Agnes in Melbourne and worked as an assistant in her husband’s grocer’s shop just as he had at Bill Merritt’s store in North Creswick. Jesse didn’t marry and there are no descendants there either.
Alwyne Merritt
My brother Doug was in Ballarat for a cycling event a couple of years ago and rode to Creswick the day prior and took a number of photographs of family graves etc. He has recently transferred these to my new computer and I note that the memorial column on which Jesse and Arthur are listed has Merritt H.A. Doug has queried the second initial with me a number of times but I knew Arthur’s military record only listed him as Arthur. Jesse had been named for his father and I think they had exhausted choosing two names for each son by them.
Arthur’s war record has his named listed as H. A. is an error and am aware that at the time of his enlistment there were no family members with the H. initial apart from another brother Robert Henry (Bob) who did not serve.
Jesse and Arthur subsequently and jointly took up soldier settlement land at Kingston so this was a place that they had known. They later disposed of this and Arthur moved to and worked in Ballarat (he had two daughters but no grandchildren) and Jesse, who had limited mobility due to his thigh being damaged by shrapnel, moved to live with his sister Agnes in Melbourne and worked as an assistant in her husband’s grocer’s shop just as he had at Bill Merritt’s store in North Creswick. Jesse didn’t marry and there are no descendants there either.
Alwyne Merritt