Malcolm Kennedy was the highest ranking officer from the Shire of Heidelberg to be killed during the war.
His sacrifice is commemorated on the Greensborough War Memorial, but his link to the area appears tenuous and his background proved one of the most difficult to trace. His father was noted at “St. Cliens”, Greensborough when Kennedy enlisted and appears to have been the link, but he soon after his son enlisted, he was shown at a legal office in Queen-street, Melbourne and subsequently residing in East Melbourne. Other than the Memorial, there was no mention of Malcolm Kennedy’s fate in any of the local news coverage.
He was also unique in that he was a professional soldier and based at the Duntroon Officer’s Training School when he enlisted, also an accomplished footballer playing 17 games for four goals in the 1911-12 seasons with the Melbourne Football Club before enlisting.
Kennedy was a Captain with 1 Australian Division Headquarters and 24 years of age when he died of wounds at the 2nd Australian Field Ambulance, Wyschaetre Ridge, Belgium on 2 January, 1918; he was interred at the Dranoutre Military Cemetery, Belgium.
Link to the history of Malcolm Stuart Kennedy
Link to ozsportshistory.com downloads for WW1
