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The optimistic message from two soldiers in 1916 has now been discovered more than 100 years later and has led to their descendants meeting
A Western Australian family has discovered a remarkable piece of history: two letters from the First World Warsealed inside a glass bottle, written by Australian soldiers a few days after embarking for Europe in 1916.
The messages, written more than a century ago, were found intact on Wharton Beach, near Esperance, and have since been brought together the descendants of the two soldiers.
The discovery was made on October 9 by Peter and Felicity Brown during one of their routine beach cleans. “We clean our beaches too much and would never let a piece of trash go,” said Deb Brown, Peter’s wife. “Then, this bottle was therewaiting to be collected.”
Inside the thick, transparent Schweppes bottle, the family found two notes written in pencil, dated August 15, 1916of soldiers Malcolm Neville, aged 27, and William Harley, aged 37. The men were aboard the troop transport ship HMAT A70 Ballarat, which had sailed from Adelaide on August 12, 1916, towards the Western Front in France, as part of the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion.
Both letters brimmed with optimism. “May whoever finds them be as well as we are” wrote Harley. Neville’s message to his mother, Robertina Neville, from Wilkawat, South Australia, said he was “having a great time”, adding that the ship was “rocking a lot but we are very happy”. Neville asked whoever found the bottle to give his mother his letter, while Harley said his note could be kept.
Tragically, Malcolm Neville was killed in combat a year laterwhile William Harley survived the war despite being gassed and injured twice, dying in 1934 from cancer, which his family believes was linked to chemical exposure.
Experts believe the bottle didn’t move very far. According to Deb Brown, it was probably buried in sand dunes for more than a century before being unearthed by recent coastal erosion. Surprisingly, the paper remained legible and the bottle showed no signs of damage caused by the action of the sea.
The discovery deeply moved the military families. “We just can’t believe it, it seems like our grandfather contacted us from beyond the grave“, Ann Turner, Harley’s granddaughter, told . Neville’s great-nephew, Herbie Neville, described the discovery as “unbelievable”, adding: “It’s so sad that he lost his life, but what a man he was.”
