Rank: Private
Service Number: 773
Place of Birth: Burwood, Melbourne, Victoria
Address: Osbourne Park via Leederville, Western Australia
Next of Kin: Mother, Mrs Elizabeth Arbuckle
Enlistment Date: 14 September 1914
Unit Name: 12th Battalion
Age at Embarkation: 22
Marital Status: Single
Occupation: Boiler attendant
Date of Death: 12 June 1915
Place of Death: Gallipoli, Turkey
HISTORY
12th Battalion Private Beresford Arbuckle was born Burwood, Victoria, and was the youngest son of Elizabeth nee Klepper (with Prussian ancestry) and Robert Arbuckle. Robert established a market garden in Main Street, Osborne Park via Leederville. When he died there in 1903, his older sons continued his business, renaming it Arbuckle Brothers.
Beresford was State schooled, finished his Engine Drivers' training in 1911 and was working as a boiler attendant when he enlisted on 31 August 1914 at Blackboy Hill aged 22.
On 31 May, at Gallipoli, Beresford was severely reprimanded for disobeying orders and for improper conduct to his superior officer. Had he been a British soldier, he’d have likely been shot.
Just a fortnight later, on 13 June 1915, Beresford was in action when he suffered shrapnel wounds to the abdomen. He died later the same day at the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station and was later buried at Shrapnel Valley Cemetery at the southern point of Anzac Cove. His grave was just a few steps from that of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, ‘the man with the donkey’ who was killed in the same area a few weeks earlier.
Beresford’s older brother James had nine children, including one the year after Beresford's death. He was named Beresford Trevor in memory of Beresford. There have subsequently been many sons born in the family who carry the name Beresford, so he has never been forgotten.
The reason his name appears on the East Fremantle Roll of Honour was a mystery. Beresford’s mother Elizabeth asked Michael Joseph Regan, from IXL Bakery on Sewell Street, East Fremantle, to witness her completion of Beresford’s Roll of Honour Circular but, otherwise, neither he nor his parents had any association with the area.
There was a more distant relative in John Arbuckle and his wife Margaret though, who were long term residents of East Fremantle, living firstly at 144 King Street and then 42 Glyde Street, East Fremantle. It is likely they who organised for Beresford’s name to be inscribed on the Roll of Honour.
Researched and written by Shannon Lovelady for www.streetsofeastfreo
12th Battalion Private Beresford Arbuckle, died of wounds 13 June 1915, Gallipoli.
Photo courtesy Australian War Memorial, image C70672.