AUTOGRAPH BOOK, Gertrude Emily Friend

Small dark green hard bound book with padded cover, gold silk front and end pages with repeating floral pattern and gold embossing to inside book edges at each end. 55 paper pages, varying colours, pink, green, cream and brown, Front cover has 'Album' printed in centre in gold script. Inside on first paper page hand-written in black ink 'To dear Gertie/Wishing her Many Happy/returns of the day/from Edye/Nov 28th 1913'; the book is inscirbed throughout primarily in black ink hand-written script with poems, sayings, limericks, in memorium notes and comments from friends, neighbours and soldiers from Blackboy Hill camp in Greenmount, Western Australia and many dated May 1915 in Heliopolis camp, Egypt, mostly Western Australian battalion soldiers on their way to fight in WWI. The majority of the soldiers who have inscribed their names and battalion details are from the 10th Australian Light Horse squadron, 3rd Brigade, A.I.F. Some pages have newspaper cuttings with photographs of soldiers most of whom have written in the book, comments are included on whether such individuals have been promoted, wounded, hospitalised or killed during the war. Several sketches appear throughout done by H.V.H., all dated December 1916, the identity of this person is at present unknown. One extremely well-drawn sketch by T. E. Murphy dated 7 Feb 1914.

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History Collection

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