24-04-2025
'Rejected' soldiers from World War I remembered in Charters Towers
A North West Queensland historian is making sure the men who desperately wanted to fight in World War I but were rejected are not forgotten.
Charters Towers resident Michael Brumby's research into the Rejected Volunteers' Association (RVA) has found how those left behind worked to support their mates who returned from active duty.
Mr Brumby found 377 men in Charters Towers were rejected for military service in 1915 and 1916 for a range of medical reasons.
Rejected soldiers later went on to find camaraderie in the Rejected Volunteers Association.
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Supplied
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Some were too short, others had bad eyesight or weak chests and nearly 80 were refused enlistment for having perceived "testicular disorders".
Mr Brumby said he struggled to find out why so many many men were rejected on those grounds.
He said it could be because military recruiters were looking for men to join the Light Horse Brigade.
"I think their physical dispositions … and the need to be riding a horse on a regular basis, probably tipped them in favour of not being accepted … if I can put it that politely," Mr Brumby said.
A Rejected Volunteers' Association badge.
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Supplied: State Library of Queensland
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No proof of 'white feathers'
Mr Brumby said he found no evidence that the men who could not join up were sent white feathers or ostracised in Charters Towers.
He said the men banded together to help returning soldiers and that in 1918 more than a dozen formed a branch of the RVA, which was founded in Sydney in 1916.
"They saw themselves as men who can support their brothers … who were gradually and slowly making their return from France and Europe," Mr Brumby said.
Mr Brumby said wearing an RVA badge allowed the men to show they wanted to serve.
"This let people know that while they were very earnest and wanting to do this," he said.
"Their medical capacity was not such that they could do it."
Rejected volunteers play tennis in Charters Towers.
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Supplied: Charters Towers Archives
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Friends with returned soldiers
Mr Brumby said the RVA met in the Charters Towers premises that would become the equivalent of the RSL.
The rejected volunteers fundraised and held welcome events for soldiers returning home.
A photo shows the rejected volunteers marking Anzac Day, alongside returned solders, in Lissner Park in Charter Towers in 1920.
Mr Brumby said it would have been the first time that returned soldiers had gathered on Anzac Day in the city.
The war memorial on Mossman Street is the centre of the town's Anzac Day service.
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ABC News: Brooke Tindall
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"[The RVA] made a connection between those who did not fight and those who did fight," he said.
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I'm still thinking about what an amazing experience that would have been, for both parties of men.
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"The fact they were there and able to meet socially, with these returned men, in their meeting rooms, and drink beer.
"It brings them back to the reality of life beyond uniform."
