First Indigenous soldier to die during active service identified by War Memorial

The first-known Indigenous soldier to die during active service has been identified by the Australian War Memorial.

Private Walter Joseph Parker is one of the most recent additions to the Memorial's Indigenous Boer War list, where it has now identified 10 Aboriginal men who served, nine of whom returned.

Private Parker, like many other Aboriginal volunteers, made two unsuccessful attempts to enlist in the First Western Australian Contingent.

He was eventually accepted into the Fifth Contingent of the Western Australian Mounted Infantry, which shipped out of Fremantle on March 7, 1901.

Private Parker died in 1902 of a typhoid in the Mpumalanga region of South Africa, just one year after the federation of Australia.

Australian War Memorial Director Matt Anderson said Private Parker's history was found during an effort to recognise more Aboriginal service members who served in the Boer War.

He said that the inclusion of Parker's name and his sacrifice has now reset our understanding and knowledge of the indigenous service in the Boer War.

The discovery was made through ongoing research to commemorate the stories of First Nations service. Willingness to serve a country that was taking so much away from our people''

Michael Bell, the Australian War Memorial's Indigenous Liaison Officer, Ngunnawal Gomeroi, said it was previously thought that the first Aboriginal man to die in service was during World War I.

Now that we have found the fate of Walter dying of disease in South Africa, that history of service, sacrifice and participation, and naming the role of honour at the Australian War Memorial back to the South African war, he said.

It has changed our understanding of history, and the service and sacrifice of our men, and it shows our willingness to serve a country that was taking so much away from our people at the time. The ultimate goal of the War Memorial was to find words from the soldiers explaining why they served, according to Mr Bell.

Tracking down letters or postcards, or oral histories of the men, when they say 'this is why I went to serve', that's gold, he said.

We have got a few individual references to those types of reasons, but we can't impose that on every man. Private Parker's story will be told and commemorated today at the Australian War Memorial's Last Post Ceremony.