ANZAC Day No.4

ABOVE: This photograph of Lieutenant (as he was then) Eustace Royston Baum Pike appeared in “The Queenslander Pictorial” supplement of “The Queenslander” on 23 January 1915. When Chaplain Lieutenant-Colonel Garland volunteered for military chaplaincy duties with the troops fighting on the Middle Eastern Front in 1918, Captain Pike assumed the honorary secretaryship of the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland, and after the war was joint honorary secretary with Canon Garland. Leicestershire-born Pike, then aged 30 and employed as a mechanical draftsman-engineer with Queensland Railways in Brisbane, enlisted in the First AIF on 5 October 1914 and was assigned to the 5th Australian Light Horse Regiment, seeing action on the Gallipoli Peninsula from 16 May 1915 to 9 September 1915. Invalided home in August 1916, Captain Pike’s commission was terminated on medical grounds from 8 September 1916.

ANZAC DAY.

COMMEMORATION OPERATIONS.

 
The Anzac Day Commemoration Committee was formed at the suggestion of Mr. T.M. Ryan [ sic, Thomas Augustine Ryan ], who is responsible for the origination of all Anzac celebrations.
The committee consisted of the Premier as chairman, the leader of the Opposition, several Ministers, the naval and military commandants, the Archbishops of Brisbane, and the heads of all other churches, the Mayors of Brisbane and South Brisbane, presidents of the various national organisations, and other prominent men.
The first hon. secretary was Canon Garland [ David John Garland ], and when he left to take up work as a chaplain in Egypt in 1918, Captain E.R.B. Pike [ Eustace Royston Baum Pike ] took on the duties.
On Friday, 25th April, the arrangements that have proved so satisfactory in previous years, will be repeated.
In the morning, memorial services will be held in the churches of each denomination. In the afternoon, parades of returned soldiers will take place, and in the evening a public meeting, where resolutions, drafted by the Commemoration Committee, will be proposed.
In the city of Brisbane, his Excellency the Governor has consented to take part at the various functions.
The church services will be held at 11 a.m. and will be attended by the troops.
In the afternoon the returned sailors and soldiers and other troops will parade, leaving the intersection of Wickham terrace and Albert street at 3 p.m., proceeding down Adelaide, Albert, George and Queen streets to Creek street.
In the evening a citizens meeting will be held in the Exhibition Hall, at 8 p.m., and also in the City Concert Hall, Stanley street, South Brisbane.
The arrangements for these meetings are in the hands of the Mayors of Brisbane and South Brisbane respectively, and suitable resolutions will be proposed.
These resolutions will be uniform throughout the State.
The Commemoration Committee has also arranged with the State Government that returned soldiers shall be given leave for the whole day; other public servants will be granted permission to attend the memorial services.
Free railway passes are to be issued to soldiers from a 30-mile radius, including Beerburrum.
Returned soldiers employed by outside firms will also be granted leave.
One minute’s complete silence will be observed throughout the State at 9 p.m., when trains and trams will stop running.

– from page 9 of “The Telegraph” of 10 April 1919.

ABOVE: This article about Captain Pike appeared on page 22 of “The Telegraph” of 12 November 1935.