Local Heroes WW1

CHEYNE, Magnus George

Details: Last Updated: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 18:07; Hits: 4094

(Pte) Magnus George Cheyne

poppy-20px Private Magnus George Cheyne 2155, born Exeter, South Australia, prior to enlistment, he embarked with the 50th Battalion, 4th Reinforcement from Adelaide on board HMAT A70 Ballarat on 12 August 1916.

Regimental number	2155
School	State School, South Australia
Other training	Nil
Religion	Church of England
Occupation	Stock owner
Address	Coward Springs, South Australia
Marital status	Single
Age at embarkation	28
Next of kin	Mother, Mrs Minnie Christina Cheyne, Canning Street, Rosewater, South Australia
Previous military service	Nil
Enlistment date	12-May-16
Rank on enlistment	Private
Unit name	50th Battalion, 4th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number	23/67/3
Embarkation details	Unit embarked from Adelaide, South Australia, on board HMAT A70 Ballarat on 12 August 1916
Rank from Nominal Roll	Lance Corporal
Unit from Nominal Roll	43rd Battalion
Fate	Killed in Action 31 July 1917
Place of death or wounding	Eastern slope of the Messines Ridge, Belgium
Age at death	36.5
Age at death from cemetery records	30
Place of burial	No known grave
Commemoration details	The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 27), Belgium

	The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

	The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.

	The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936.

	Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.
	Sandness Kirkyard, in Sandness Parish, Shetland Islands, Scotland
Panel number, Roll of Honour,	136
Australian War Memorial	136
Miscellaneous information from	Parents: Magnus CHEYNE and Minnie DODD(formerly CHEYNE), Canning Street, Rosewater, South Australia
cemetery records
Family/military connections	Brothers: 1580 Pte Alfred Lawrence CHEYNE, 3rd Light Horse Regiment, returned to Australia, 14 March 1919; 6488 Pte James CHEYNE, 10th Bn, returned to Australia, 23 July 1919.
Other details	War service: Western Front
Other details	Medals: British War Medal, Victory Medal

ID number    P10923.001
Collection    Photograph
Object type    Colour - Digital file TIFF
Photographer    Rogers, George A
Place made    Australia: South Australia, Adelaide
Date made    c 1916

Description

Studio portrait of 2155 Lance Corporal (L Cpl) Magnus George Cheyne, 50th Battalion. L Cpl Cheyne, a stock owner from Port Adelaide, SA, enlisted on 12 May 1916 and embarked from Adelaide aboard HMAT Ballarat (A70) on 12 August 1916. He was transferred to the 43rd Battalion in November 1916 and was killed in action in at Messines, Belgium on 31 July 1917. He has no known grave and is commemorated at the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, Belgium. L Cpl Cheyne was 30 years old.