“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. This officer rendered valuable service throughout three days’ operations. The information furnished by his reconnaissance was invaluable, and helped greatly to the success of two advances. He showed marked ability in adapting captured machine guns for use against the enemy, instructing the gunners and helping them in every way. He led a storming party and cleared out a trench. His energy and coolness throughout was a great asset to the morale of the men..’
Thus read the citation published in the London Gazette for The Military Cross awarded to Charles Eliel Pizzey in September 1918.
Though born in Fitzroy in 1894, as a young child Charles and his siblings grew up at “Claremont” Diamond Creek. His son Mervyn described the property in his family history publication: “It consisted of a large orchard and plenty of land for a cow, hens, pigs and a large vegetable garden”.
His father, also Charles ran the family business George Pizzey and Son, tanners and leather merchants, one of Australia’s largest tanneries.
In 1905, business improved and the family moved to a house named “Leura” in Clarke Street, Northcote. Charles attended Fairfield State School. In 1907 they moved again to “Benenuta”, Darebin Road, Prince of Wales Park, near Northcote. Charles was a member of the Methodist Church. Around this time he met fellow church goer Edith Myrtle Smith who would later become his wife.
Charles continued his education at the Melbourne Continuation School where he completed his matriculation and studied to become a teacher. While at school he served in the cadets and the local militia which was common at this time for young men.
He gained a position teaching at Melbourne High School but this did not last long. Following news of the Gallipoli invasion, with his parent’s consent, as he was under twenty one, Charles enlisted in early June 1915. At a farewell gathering at the Prince of Wales’ Park Methodist Church, the Minister delivered what was described in the local press as “a stirring address”, describing ”our soldier boys as heroes, who were bravely ranging themselves alongside the champions of freedom and honor, urging them to quit themselves like men, to fight for honor, King and Country.”
Before embarkation he turned 21 upon which he received a gold watch. He gave it to his mother for safe keeping. While he was away, she wound the watch every day. Immediately after his 21st, he embarked with the 8th reinforcements to the 5th Battalion. In January 1916, he landed at the Tel el Kebir training centre in Egypt. From where he went to France and action in Fromelles, Poziers and Ypres encountering the worst battles the Anzacs experienced.
He was soon promoted to Sergeant and then Quartermaster-Sergeant. In September 1916 he was sent to the Officer Cadet Battalion at Trinity College, Cambridge University, England. He spent four months there passing with distinction and was subsequently promoted to a commissioned rank.
In January 1917, he returned to France and joined the 60th Battalion where he trained troops to use the Lewis automatic machine gun. He also spent time as an Intelligence Officer involved with undertaking a survey for the move against Villers-Bretonneux, “the result of which, and their action subsequently, was in a great measure responsible for the great success of the action”. He was awarded the Military Cross on the 25th April 1918 which was presented to him later at Buckingham Palace by King George V.
He returned home on the transport Wyreema on the 31st of May, 1919, where he soon joined the family business. Once settled in and now familiar with the business and industry as a whole, he realised that chrome tanning was the revolutionary change taking place in the leather trade and was the next step in the tanning production. He became well respected in the industry and stood as President of the Master Tanners Association in the 1940s and became a member of the federal Hide allocation committee during World War Two.
He married Edith in 1920 and for a short time lived in Thornbury then rented a home at the lower end of Russell Street, Ivanhoe before moving to Kooyong. About 1926 they moved back to Ivanhoe at 15 Marshall Street where by this time Charles and Edith had a number of children, including Mervyn from whose family history some of these notes are based. From there they moved to the Boulevard, near Ivanhoe golf Course where Edith passed away in 1960, after forty years of marriage.
Charles and Edith had been devoted to each other as well as the Ivanhoe Methodist Church. After the war he had also become a keen gardener taking pride in displaying spectacular annuals each year.
Some years later Charles remarried. Joan was also involved in the Church and they enjoyed a sixteen year union till Charles passed away days after his 83rd birthday in September 1977.
Over 400 people attended his funeral. He was laid to rest in the family grave at Warringal Cemetery, Heidelberg.
PHOTOS
Charles Pizzey – Victorian Education Department Record of War Service 1914-1919 via Glen Turnbull, Archivist Melbourne High School
Lewis Gun in World War 1 – Wikimedia Commons
SOURCES
Australia Birth Index 1788 – 1922 Vic 1894 / 29169
GALLANT AUSTRALIANS. (1915, July 24). Preston Leader Vic. : 1914 – 1918), p. 2. Retrieved May 17, 2015, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92074410
This is the story of George Martin Pizzey who arrived in Australia in 1857 from England and a record of his achievements and of his descendants primarily through the line of Alfred and Clara Pizzey by
Mervyn Geoffrey Pizzey
National Archives of Australia: First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914 – 1920: B2455, PIZZEY CHARLES ELIEL
Australian War Memorial – War History – Units – 5th Australian Infantry Battalion
60th Battalion (as above)
Supplement to the London Gazette 16 September, 1918 [p. 11051]
This story first appeared in “Fine Spirit and Pluck: World War One Stories from Banyule, Nillumbik and Whittlesea” published by Yarra Plenty Regional Library, August 2016
by Liz Pidgeon 17 May 2015
