Frank FISHER #2428

Indigenous Australian, Frank FISHER, 11th Light Horse Regiment

Frank FISHER was born in Clermont, Qld in 1880 and was living with his second wife Esme and 3 children Willie, Frank and Dorris at the Aboriginal Settlement at Barambah, when he enlisted in August 1917. Fisher embarked from Sydney to serve overseas on board HMAT Ulysses in December 1917 in the company of a number of other indigenous soldiers, including Frederick Burnett, Harry Doyle, William Brown, John Geary and James Lingwoodock.

This group of reinforcements later which became known as the Queensland Black Watch, trained at the 4th Light Horse Training Depot before joining their comrades in the field. Fisher served with his Regiment until October 1918, when he was taken ill and admitted to the Field Ambulance suffering from pyrexia - a fever common among troops who served in Palestine and the Jordan Valley. He was transferred via the hospital ship 'Assays' from Haifa back to Alexandria where he was admitted to 31st General Hospital, Port Said for treatment.

Fisher finally returned to his unit in November 1918 but was again taken ill with fever in March 1919, he returned to Australia in July 1919.

* Frank Fisher is the great grandfather of the Olympic gold medalist Cathy Freeman.

Read more ...

• Service record: FISHER, Frank
• Embarkation roll: 20th Reinf. 11th Light Horse Regiment
• Australian War Memorial collection: Portrait of Frank Fisher
• Image: The Queenslander Pictorial, 12 January 1918
• Blog: Queensland Aboriginals in the 11th Light Horse Regiment
• One of the soldiers featured in SLQ’s HistoryPin Collection
• Queensland’s Indigenous Servicemen Digital Story and Oral History

The information in this blog post has been researched by State Library staff and volunteers, it is based on available information at this time. If you have more information that you would like to share or further research uncovers new findings, this post will be updated.