Opus Sectile Honour Boards

Your correspondent has been over looking at one of her favourite blogs, The Empire Called and I Answered, where Lenore Frost is attempting to track down the honour rolls that include men who enlisted from Essendon and the surrounding area in WWI. A fascinating one is the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board roll, which is on some form of pressed metal.

Which had me thinking about the Honour Rolls and photographs in the Maffra Library, inherited from when the RSL occupied that space.

The main board, which is an opus sectile work (literally "segemented work"), is similar to work by Brooks Robinson Pty Ltd, a Melbourne firm that advertised extensively in Anglican newsletters. From memory, there is a similar board in St John's Anglican Church in Bairnsdale, and small pieces in St John's Anglican Church at Maffra.

This board (below), is accompanied by two smaller works, both including photographs of local women. The one above, to Louie Riggall, was erected by her family when the Shire Committee refused to include her on the shire roll, as they did not believe, being a British VAD, that she fulfilled the enlistment criteria. Louie died of fever while working in the British Army Hospital in Rouen, where she was in charge of of the stores.

When the community lost Sister Irene Singleton as a prisoner of war on Banka Island in World War II, the community erected a matching memorial to her.

The larger WWI board can be viewed at all times the library is open, and the two mosaic portraits are in the same room. The Shire rolls claims to be a full roll, but casualties from Glenmaggie, for example, were not included for some reason. There is a full-sized version HERE

A full listing of those who served from all known areas in the former Maffra Shire can be found HERE.