James Harcus was born in Orkney in 1881. He emigrated in 1907, first to New Zealand and then to Australia. When the First World War began he signed up immediately and fought and died as an Australian at Gallipoli in 1915.
James Harcus was born into a farming family on Orkney, Scotland, in 1881. His father died when he was only seven, leaving his mother to raise five children. James started work as a clerk to solicitors in Orkney but in 1907 he left home for New Zealand. He moved a year later to Sydney, Australia, where by 1914 he was a barrister at the Supreme Court of New South Wales. He could speak Gaelic, lapsing into it when he was angry, and was very active in the Scots community in Sydney.
‘He was a keen soldier, cool, collected, void of fear...’
Following the outbreak of the First World War James enlisted immediately. He became a Captain in the Australian Navy and Military Expeditionary Force, which was the only force commanded by Australian not British officers. He took part in the successful capture of New Guinea from German forces in September 1914, where Australian forces suffered their first casualties of the war.
In June 1915 James, now a Major in the Australian Infantry Force, was sent to Gallipoli, Turkey where Allied troops were engaged in bitter fighting with Turkish forces. He landed at Suvla Bay on 22 August 1915 and was killed on 11 December the same year.
James was one of eight thousand ‘men from Australia’ killed at Gallipoli. The bravery and sacrifices of these ANZACs (soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) quickly became part of Australian national identity. Yet many of them like James were not born in Australia and had been living there for just a few years before war broke out. ANZAC Day, 25 April, anniversary of the first landings at Gallipoli, remains Australia’s – and New Zealand’s – most important national occasion, when the sacrifice of Australian and New Zealand troops is commemorated. William Hughes, Australian Prime Minister, 1915-1923 is quoted as saying that ‘Australia was born on the shores of Gallipoli.’
The fellow officer, Captain Howard, wrote to James’s mother following his death; ‘the men and officers of the 20th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force wish to convey their deepest sympathy … He was a keen soldier, cool, collected, void of fear.’
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