Edgar and Greta Towner: Remembrance Day 2024

World War I saw multiple members of many families enlist for military service. It is not unusual to see a surname repeated several times on memorials throughout the country showing the remarkable commitment from Australian communities. One of the first families to settle on the banks of the Barcoo River in North West Queensland, the Towner family, has a remarkable story of distinguished service of siblings Edgar and Greta. 

Edgar and Greta, along with their other siblings, were born on the family property, Barcoe Station, near Blackall. Edgar Thomas Towner, a grazier, enlisted as a private in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in January 1915, aged 25. His younger sister Greta, having already completed basic nursing training in Rockhampton, enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service as a nurse in July that same year. 

Greta initially served in Egypt in the Australian hospitals in Heliopolis, Cairo. In September 1915, she transferred to the No 2 Australian Stationary Hospital on the island of Lemnos, where she treated the sick and wounded from the Gallipoli campaign. Here she encountered dreadful working and living conditions. There was no running water or sewerage facilities, which made controlling the spread of illnesses like dysentery and pneumonia incredibly difficult. Working through the Gallipoli campaign earned Greta and her fellow nurses the right to be called Anzacs.

The small brass capital 'A', which can be seen in the middle of the arm colour patch on Greta’s uniform, is in recognition of this.  

After the December evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, Greta served on the hospital ship SS Demosthenes, transporting injured men home to Australia. After a brief break at home, Greta's return journey to England was aboard HMAT Kyarra (A55). In January 1917, she saw service in the No 2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in Southall, which specialised in amputations and artificial limbs. Greta’s final posting of the war took her to the 1st  Australian General Hospital in Rouen, France, where she worked in what were, again, very difficult conditions for approximately seven months before she contracted influenza. She was hospitalised for ten days in April 1918. Having leave granted upon discharge from hospital, Greta travelled to Ireland to see the country of her mother’s birth, before returning to duty in France and receiving a promotion to Sister. She was on active duty for a short time before contracting influenza again, which required 18 days of hospitalisation in late October 1918.

Edgar, too, initially disembarked in Egypt, where he remained while some of his unit, the 25th Australian Infantry Battalion, participated in the Gallipoli campaign. By the time he moved on to France in early 1916, he had already been promoted to Sergeant, having established himself as a very capable leader and soldier.   

Edgar went on to serve with the 7th and 2nd Battalion, Australian Machine Gun Corps, for the next two years on the battlefields of France and Belgium. During this time, he was mentioned twice in Sir Douglas Haig’s dispatches, on 9 April 1917 and 7 April 1918, for his “devotion to duty and consistent good work”. 

In 1917, Edgar was promoted again, commissioned as Lieutenant, and in 1918, he performed such conspicuous feats of bravery and valour that he was awarded both the Military Cross and the Victoria Cross. It was on 10 and 11 June 1918 that his section, when fighting at Morlancourt near the town of Albert in France, was the first to reach its objective. Edgar quickly organised his men and brought them into action, assisting the 7th Infantry Brigade in advancing and consolidating their position. During this action, he captured and made use of enemy machine guns. On the morning of the 11th, he crossed open ground in daylight to reach an Australian post that had been hit by artillery. Under heavy fire and at great personal risk, he then helped re-establish this post. For this, Edgar Towner received the Military Cross. 

Edgar distinguished himself again on 31 August and 1 September 1918 during the assault on Mont St Quentin. He was eventually evacuated with a severe gun shot wound to his scalp. His actions on these two days led to him being recommended for, and receiving, the Victoria Cross – the highest and most prestigious decoration in the British honours system. It is awarded for valour in the presence of the enemy to members of the British armed forces and personnel from elsewhere in the British Empire. Australia has since developed its own honours system, including the Victoria Cross for Australia, established on 15 January 1991. 

Below is a copy of his citation for the Victoria Cross, found in his service records at the National Australian Archives. 

Edgar wrote to his family often and looked forward to receiving mail from home. In several of his letters, he mentions his sister and the fact that they had missed out on seeing each other once again due to being sent to different locations on different days. They often missed each other by only a day. The sad reality was that serving siblings might not see each other at all for the duration of the war.  

In Edgar’s letter to his family on 12 September 1918, he addresses another traumatic aspect of World War I. 

'Heard yesterday that one of our Officers who was wounded in the stomach, the same day as I, has since died. I was very sorry to hear it, as he was such a merry young fellow, quite the life of our Mess. It is really the hardest part of the war to see your best pals dropping over the Abyss one by one'. 

After Armistice was declared, but before the peace treaty was signed, there was a long wait for personnel to be collected and returned home. During this time, they were still working, but their duties were much reduced and their lives more relaxed. It was on 21 December 1918, while in Belgium, that Edgar had time to tend to the task of having his VC ribbon sewn onto his uniform, and he wrote to tell his family of having received it that same day. 

'I received a VC ribbon today from our divisional Commander. I am enclosing you his card. It is very hard to procure the VC ribbon in this part of the world, and the one today is the first I have received. I have just had it sewn on my tunic'. 

When the war ended, Greta returned to Australia and studied pharmacy at the University of Sydney, after which she emigrated to the United States of America. It was there that she worked in veteran hospitals as a nurse and married twice, living out the rest of her life in America. Greta passed away in 1961 at the age of 70 and is buried in in the San Francisco National Cemetery in California. She shares her grave with her second husband, Harry W. Maloney, who died six years later. 

Edgar returned to Queensland in 1919, where he had trouble raising enough money to stock his property, called Valparaiso. In 1922, he embarked on three years of droving work before entering into a partnership in Kaloola Station near Longreach. Edgar had a deep passion for our agricultural industry and built up the Russleigh Pastoral Company in Isisford. 

With extensive reading and study, he became an expert on the land of western Queensland and central Australia. Edgar was known to commonly spend weeks at a time in exploration and study of this region. In 1955, he addressed a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia and was awarded the James Thomson Park Gold Medal and a fellowship of the society.  

Edgar never married and passed away in Longreach in 1972. He was buried in the Longreach cemetery with full military honours. 

Both Greta and Edgar are fondly remembered by the community in which they were raised. They are commemorated with bronze statues in Blackall’s Memorial Park. State Library of Queensland is very fortunate to have had a maquette of Greta’s statue donated and this is now part of the wonderful collection that informs on the lives of this incredible pair of Queensland siblings. Acquisition of this maquette was made possible through a generous donation by Glenn Cooke through the Queensland Library Foundation. 

Greta and Edgar Towner are just one example of what was common during World Wars I and II – families who gave more than one member to the cause. This led to harrowing times for their relatives at home, left wondering how many, if any, would return. 

To learn more about this remarkable family, you can access the Edgar Thomas Towner Letters in State Library of Queensland collections.

This Remembrance Day, we honour and remember Lieutenant Edgar Thomas Towner and Sister Greta Norman Towner for their incredible fortitude and service during World War I. We encourage you to think about who you'll stop to remember and discover ways to commemorate Remembrance Day at Anzac Square & Memorial Galleries.