Between January-September 1919, pneumonic influenza, commonly known as the 'Spanish Flu', killed 6,387 people in New South Wales, infecting as many as 290,000 in Metropolitan Sydney alone.1 The pandemic threw the people and Government of the State into a community effort rivalled only by that of the recent war, in an attempt to lessen the spread, and impact, of a deadly disease.
This volume shows returned soldiers clearing the land, constructing houses, and carrying out farming activities on soldier settlements established following World War 1. The photos also feature their families and cottages in which they lived.
A sample of photos of Sydney Harbour Trust staff killed in action in World War I. The oval shaped portraits are printed on thick card and have been cut out of an album or display board. The name of the person has been written in pencil on the back of the prints.
The Soldier Settlement website: A Land Fit For Heroes? contains 195 case studies using a variety of sources including those held by us and the returned soldiers’ digitised personnel files held by the National Archives of Australia. The case studies are often incomplete and the information generally dates to the early 1930s. There were over 9,000 soldier settlers in New South Wales and this small sample has been extracted from our voluminous files.