Edgar, Walter
Military Medal
Corporal
No. 10029, 4th Division Headquarters, Australian Division
Died of disease on Saturday 9 August 1919 (aged 28)
Buried:
St. Kilda General Cemetery, Australia (Presbyterian Plot. D. 208. GRM/3*)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
BIOGRAPHY
Corporal Walter Edgar MM (No. 10029) meets one of the criteria for inclusion on this website: Casualties who had strong family connections with the Ards and North Down area.
Corporal Walter Edgar was born in 1891 in Prahran, Victoria, Australia, and he was a son of James Finlay Edgar and Rose Ann Edgar (nee Aicken), both of whom were baptised in First Bangor Presbyterian Church.
James Finlay Edgar and Rose Ann Aicken were married in 1886 in Australia.
Corporal Walter Edgar’s paternal grandparents, Robert and Eleanor Edgar (nee Finlay), were married in First Bangor Presbyterian Church on 19 October 1854. His maternal grandparents, James and Eliza Aicken (nee Agnew), were married in First Bangor Presbyterian Church on 28 November 1856.
James Finlay Edgar and Rose Ann Edgar (nee Aicken) had six children:
Eleanor Elizabeth (born 1887; died 26 April 1889)
Elsie May (born 10 January 1889 in Victoria, Australia)
Walter (born 1891 in Prahran, Victoria, Australia)
James Leslie (born 14 November 1893 in Caulfield, Victoria, Australia)
Evelyn Maggie (born 1896)
Edith Rose Aicken (born 1900)
Their mother, Rose Ann Edgar (nee Aicken), died on 25 December 1900.
Their father, James Finlay Edgar, remarried. He and Sarah Elizabeth Allen were married in 1903, and they had two children:
Eric Allen (born 1906)
Lillian Eleanor (born 1909 in Caulfield, Victoria, Australia)
Walter Edgar enlisted on 9 July 1915 in Melbourne, Australia, went to Europe in April 1916, served in France and Belgium, was awarded the Military Medal on 23 June 1917 ‘for bravery in the field’ when in 13th Field Ambulance, was later hospitalised with pleurisy in England, and returned to Australia on 1 August 1919.
Corporal Walter Edgar MM (No. 10029) died in hospital at 8.45 pm on 9 August 1919 and was buried with full military honours in the St. Kilda Cemetery, Dandenong Road, St. Kilda East, Victoria. The cause of his death was recorded as pneumonic influenza and pneumococcal meningitis. His death was recorded as being ‘attributable to active service’.
After he enlisted, Walter Edgar made his will on 12 July 1915, and his father, James Finlay Edgar, was his sole legatee. His father died on 29 November 1918 as the result of an accident. When their father died, Walter Edgar and his brother, James Leslie Edgar, who was also on active service during the Great War, were in England. Both men discussed changing their wills. Walter was ill and made his wishes known to Leslie without making a new legal document. After Walter died Leslie obtained Letters of Administration based on Walter’s expressed wishes.
Corporal Walter Edgar’s maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Aicken, and Rifleman William Michael Jackson Aicken’s paternal grandfather, James Aicken, were brothers.