SERGEANT STUART NORMAN SPENCE
AUSTRALIAN INFANTRY
7TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 41
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
This is a partial English translation of Horace's famous line: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: it is sweet and glorious to die for one's country. And yes, even after the savaging Wilfred Owen gave it in his famous poem of that name, families did still chose the line as an inscription in either the English or the Latin.
I have written about this before for Serjeant Frank Coad of the South Staffordshire Regiment who was killed in action on 14 March 1917. As I said there, Horace did not mean that there was anything 'sweet' about the process of dying for your country but that to be prepared to do so was appropriate behaviour for a good man.
Norman Spence was born in Glasgow and educated at Hutcheson's Grammar School after which he became a shipping clerk. At the age of 32 he emigrated to Australia and took up fruit farming. He enlisted on 25 August 1915 and after a period of extensive training arrived in the trenches with the 41st Battalion Australian Infantry on Christmas Eve 1916.
The Battalion experienced very heavy fighting around Ypres during the summer of 1917 and on 4 October took part in the Battle of Broodseinde. Spence survived the fighting on that day but was hit by a shell on the following one. Wounded in the right shoulder and hip he was taken to a casualty clearing station at Lijssenthoek where he died two days later.
The St Andrew's (Brisbane) Uniting Church Heritage Committee website has more details about the life and death of Sergeant Spence.