CHARLES EDWARD BLACKBOURN
AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY
1ST OCTOBER 1916 AGE 25
BURIED: BRANDHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
There is no recorded next-of-kin for Private Blackbourn in the War Graves Register but his father filled in the circular for the Roll of Honour of Australia so perhaps he chose his inscription too. Interestingly, the inscription doesn't say that Charles Blackbourn sacrificed himself for love of his 'home world' but that 'he loved his home world best' - better than what?
Blackbourn was a volunteer not an unwilling recruit. There was no conscription in Australia. In October 1916, as the tide of willing volunteers dried up, the Government held a referendum to find out whether the public would support its proposals for conscription. The public's answer was 'no'. And it was a bigger 'no' when the Government held a second referendum on the issue in December 1917.
But Blackbourn had volunteered long before this, despite the fact that he 'loved his home world best'. Perhaps his family wanted to emphasise on his headstone that here was no gung-ho soldier but a home-loving boy who did what he saw was his duty and as a consequence died of wounds at a field ambulance dressing station far away in Brandhoek, Belgium.