George HILL #3655

Indigenous Australian, George HILL, 49th Infantry Battalion & 4th Machine Gun Company

George HILL was born in Rockhampton in 1894 to Marshal Hill and Agnes Talbot. George Hill had previously unsuccessfully volunteered to serve but had been rejected "as to colour" however in May 1917 after a change in Army Regulations, he successfully enlisted in Charleville.

After training at Enoggera Camp, he embarked from Sydney on board the troopship ‘Medic’ in August 1917 along with three other known Indigenous enlistments Albert Burke #3620, George Forster #3641, and Charlie Morgan #3679, William Perrott #3704, all assigned to the 10th Reinforcements for the 49th Infantry Battalion.

Not long after arriving in England, Hill was admitted to the Codford Military hospital with influenza and bronchitis, delaying his embarkation to France until January 1918.

On 6 April 1918, George Hill was wounded in action while the Battalion was serving near Dernancourt. He was admitted to hospital and subsequently evacuated to England after suffering gunshot wounds to his left arm and hand.

In September 1918 he was considered fit and was transferred to the 4th Machine Gun Company and re-embarked for France in September 1918. Hill remained on duty with the 4th MGC in Belgium until being returned to Australia in September 1919.

Read more ...

• Service record: HILL, George
• Embarkation roll: 10th Reinf. 49th Infantry Battalion
• Unit War Diaries: 49th Infantry Battalion
• Scarlett, Philippa. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander volunteers for the AIF: the Indigenous response to World War One. Fourth edition, Indigenous Histories, Macquarie, ACT, 2018
• Image: The Queenslander Pictorial, 15 September 1917 
• One of the soldiers featured in SLQ’s HistoryPin Collection
• Queensland’s Indigenous Servicemen [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.