Hodgens, Herbert John Neville (N/A)
Place of Birth: Port Melbourne, VIC
Age: 33 years
Enlistment Details: Friday, 15 January 1915 – Melbourne, VIC
Service Number: N/A view online service record
Address:
unknown
Next of Kin:
Rosina Hodgens (wife)
40 Kendall Street
Coburg, VIC
Embarkation Details:
Date: DNE
Fate:
Discharged: Tuesday, 20 July 1915
Medically unfit, permanently deaf in left ear.
H J N Hodgens is listed on the Roll of Honour for the Port Melbourne Branch of the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society (PAFS)
1917 ‘PORT P.A.F.S.’, Port Melbourne Standard (Vic. : 1914 – 1920), 20 January, p. 3. , viewed 29 Dec 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88370019
2 Comments
Cheryl Griffin
Herbert Hogdens, son of Robert Edward Hodgens and Keziah Matthews was born at Port Melbourne in about 1882.
When he enlisted in January 1915, Herbert and his wife Rosina were living at 40 Kendall Street, Coburg. He was a 33 year old farm labourer and as his wife later gave her address as Pine Grange, Barraport via Boort, it is likely that this was the couple’s permanent residence.
Although Herbert John Neville Hodgens did not embark when he first enlisted, he did eventually find his way to Egypt. Discharged as permanently unfit on 20 July 1915 on account of long standing deafness, he tried again only six days later as Herbert Hodgens, was assigned the service number 3337 and joined the 11th Reinforcements of the 7th Battalion.
He arrived in Egypt on 11 January 1916, just after the evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and no doubt expected to moved on to serve on the Western Front. However, almost as soon as he arrived he was admitted to hospital with otitis media and returned to Australia with deafness in April 1916.
It’s amazing that he made it as far as he did, because he had had a radical mastoid operation in 1913 and a tonsillectomy and adenectomy in 1915. It was agreed, however, that his acute and chronic otitis media was aggravated by active service and he was paid a pension on his return.
Herbert Hodgens returned to the country life at Boort and by the early 1920s had settled at Iona via Bunyip. He died at Sunshine in 1954 aged 72.
Although he lived and worked in the country, Herbert’s family was based in Coburg. They lived at 25 Anketell Street and it was here that his much younger brother Robert Leeds Hodgens enlisted in January 1916. Despite being injured several times, including injury to his eyes on account of a shell burst, Robert returned to Coburg where he married Isabella Ritchie in 1920. They remained in Coburg where he worked as a postal employee, but in their later years they couple moved to Gippsland where she died in 1963 and he in 1968.
David Thompson
Thank you for the detailed information on the Hodgens family, especially our Port boy Herbert.