Discovering Anzacs: The Descendants of James Josey

The Discovering Anzacs volunteers have been working with the digitised portraits of 15,000 Queensland soldiers of the First World War and their digitised enlistment records in a joint project between the State Library and the National Archives of Australia. In creating digital profiles for these soldiers they also come across connections between stories of family and Queensland history. Sharing the stories of these Anzac’s paints a fuller picture of the black and white portraits that stare at us solemnly from the century old issues of The Queenslander.

GUEST BLOGGER: Elise Costello, Discovering Anzacs volunteer

20 year old Clarence Frederick Albury enlisted in, Roma, in August 1914 as part of the 9th Battalion. His photograph appears again in The Queenslander, on 22 May 1915 because he was returned wounded by severe rheumatism, the usual casualty of hours spent crouched in wet, muddy trenches.

A little bit of digging revealed Clarence was one of 12 grandsons of James Josey, all of whom served in the First World War. They were the children of James Josey’s eight daughters and five sons. Three were killed in action and of those who returned, six were invalided. The remainder were undoubtedly scarred in silent ways. Not only were they brave men but they left brave mothers and wives at home, many of them prominent in patriotic pursuits.

James Josey (1821-1903) was a self-made man of the Empire, a bastion of the ‘old country’. He was a pioneer of the Ipswich, Goodna and Redbank Plains districts and built a beautiful homestead on Eden Station at Opussum Creek, 2 miles from Redbank Plains. The fact that his patriotic fervour was passed down to his 13 children and then to his 13 grandsons was magnified when I discovered he came to Moreton Bay on the convict ship ‘Eden’ in 1840. He gained his ticket of leave in 1847 and worked in the timber industry which financed his many land selections. He became a gentleman landowner of about 7000 acres where his large brood of eight daughters and five sons worked as beekeepers, cheesemakers, hay sellers and horse breeders.
I can imagine these grandchildren in their childhood years running through the imposing 2-storied homestead with verandah’s all around and not knowing what desperate battles lay ahead.

Stories like these emphasise that the volunteers are indeed, ‘Discovering Anzacs’. The portrait of Clarence Albury reinforces the notion that our history is not a set of independent stories, but interconnected.

The Anzac Descendants of James Josey:

• Henry Morgan Jones of Goodna – died of wounds 1917
• Lamington Meyrick Jones 2385 – invalided 1919
• Harold Gordon Josey of Esk – died of wounds 1916
• Major Thomas James Logan of Forest Hill – KIA Gallipoli 1915
• Capt Whitmore C Logan  – invalided
• Alfred John Logan – returned 1918
• Josey Matthew Logan – invalided 1915
• Stanford Ralph Caviley Josey – returned
• James Walter Habbet Josey – returned
• Oliver Ernest Albury – invalided 1919
• Cecil William Albury – returned wounded
• Clarence Frederick Albury – returned wounded
• Andrew Hudson – returned