John Williams
Service number: 70201
Served during World War One
I have written about family members who served during World War One in New Zealand before. The next family member that I am writing about is John Williams the father of my step grandfather Claude Williams, although I have always known him as basically my grandfather, so there could be confusion within the family tree.
John Williams was born in 1890 to Lewis and Margaret Williams. I knew I had the correct John Williams as the next of kin had Lewis Williams of Parua Bay, Whangarei. After the war John would marry Ada Delaney in 1922 and go on to have three sons.
John first enlisted on the 24th of July in 1917 and was employed as a gold miner by the Waihi Gold mining company and had lived at Belmont House in Waihi. He would have likely worked in or around the Martha mine that was the main mine within Waihi that was active during this period.[1] After the war his address was listed on the service record as Puhipuhi: Whakapara PO Box Whangarei. He would live in the Northland area for the rest of his life after the war. His age at time of enlistment was 27 years, height was 5 foot, 9 ¾ inches. He was approved for service by a W M Inglis lt col.
On or around the date of 2nd of March 1918, John left on board HMNZT 101 known as Tofua with the 35th Reinforcements and the 29th Maori contingent.[2] He disembarked the Tofua at Suez on the 8th of April and marched to camp. While the type of camp and the exact location was unclear on the service record, but what was clear was he had marched into an Australian camp. There were several near Cairo and probably along the route as the Suez Canal was a heavily defended area with threat of attack by the Ottoman Empire.[3]
John would later be admitted to hospital on the 25th of April with a diagnosis of V.D.G that was short for Venereal disease Gonorrhoea. Her would be moved to the government hospital and after treatment would be back on duty on the 13th of June 1918. I have included further information on the diseases in the links. It was pretty common for soldiers to pick up diseases during their service, and treatment was very different to the simple medication taken today. New Zealand soldiers interesting enough had a high rate of sexually transmitted diseased, but also was the only allied country to provide compulsory safe sex kits for the soldiers, and there was a New Zealand safe sex advocate called Ettie Rout from Christchurch who worked behind the scenes.[4]
He was around Suez for around a month before embarking on the RMS Ormonde on the 4th of July 1918 at Alexandrea, where he would be dropped off at Southampton on the 14th of July. The Ormonde started life as a troopship in 1917 and would later become a passenger liner.[5] John would be marched into Sling camp. Sling camp was a training camp that housed the New Zealand regiments and at one stage had around 4 thousand soldiers living there.[6] John would later be sent to France at the end of September 1918, where he marched into another camp at Etaples on the 3rd of October. This French camp was where soldiers had some training before being sent to the Western Front. There were also hospitals located here and would be where wounded would eventually be sent.[7] John would vanish from the service record on the 8th of October 1918 when he joined the 1st Battalion Auckland regiment in the field. Further reading seems to suggest around the time John joined them, the brigade was resting near the Hindenburg line. Later they would join other New Zealand brigades in early November and liberate the town of Le Quesnoy in France with a little bit of fighting. Not long afterwards the Armistice would be signed on the 11th of November 1918.[8]
Interestingly John was in Tilbury on the 12th of March 1919 on board the Corinthic where he would disembark at Lyttleton on the 22nd April 1919. Several days after the 12th of March there was a riot at Sling camp involving the New Zealand soldiers. According to John’s discharge record he would be discharged on the 22nd of May in 1919.
Period of service is as follows
163 days in New Zealand
1 year 54 days overseas
1 year and 217 days total service
Commenced service 28/10/17 – 22/05/19
Sources
Primary Sources
John Williams service record WW1
https://collections.archives.govt.nz/en-NZ/web/arena/search#/entity/aims-archive/R22019831, accessed 21/01/2025.
National Archives New Zealand, Voyage Diary of Tofua 1918,
Secondary
Black, Sandi ‘Sling Camp and the Bulford Kiwi’ Whanganui Chronicle, 28 April 2018, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/museum-sling-camp-and-the-bulford-kiwi/J6C4LY7SACW3T3NZS4PLOOG32A/, accessed 21/01/2025.
Burton, O.E ‘The Auckland Regiment’, Whitcombe& Tombs LTD, 1922,
https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/webarchive/20210104000423/http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1Auck.html, accessed 28/01/2025.
BirtwistleWiki, About RMS Ormonde, updated 10 October 2023, https://birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/RMS_Ormonde, accessed 21/01/2025.
Tolerton, Jane 'Sexual health - Sexual health, 1914–1945', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/sexual-health/page-2, accessed 28/01/2025.
New Zealand History, ‘Ettie Rose, Safe Sex campaigner’, Ministry of Culture and Heritage,https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/ettie-rout-safe-sex-campaigner, accessed 28/01/2025.
New Zealand History, ‘Sinai Campaign’, Ministry of Culture and Heritage, updated 3 Nov 2017, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/sinai-campaign, accessed 21/01/2025.
Ngatapuweae New Zealand Government, The Logistics of War, https://ngatapuwae.govt.nz/insights/the-logistics-of-war/index.html, accessed 21/01/2025.
Torpedo Bay Navy Museum, ’Troopships Departed New Zealand’, https://navymuseum.co.nz/explore/by-themes/world-war-one/troopships-departed-nz-ww1/, accessed 21/01/2025.
About Venereal Diseases in World War 1 amongst the AIF
https://jmvh.org/article/the-australian-armys-two-traditional-diseases-gonorrhea-and-syphilis-a-military-medical-history-during-the-twentieth-century/, accessed 21/01/2025.
Waihi Gold, About the historic mine, Oceana Gold, 2025, https://www.waihigold.co.nz/education/history/about-the-historic-mine/, accessed 21/01/2025.
[1] Waihi Gold, About the historic mine, Oceana Gold, 2025, https://www.waihigold.co.nz/education/history/about-the-historic-mine/, accessed 21/01/2025.
[2] Torpedo Bay Navy Museum, ’Troopships Departed New Zealand’, https://navymuseum.co.nz/explore/by-themes/world-war-one/troopships-departed-nz-ww1/, accessed 214/01/2025; John Williams Service Record p.5.
[3] New Zealand History, ‘Sinai Campaign’, Ministry of Culture and Heritage, updated 3 Nov 2017, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/sinai-campaign, accessed 21/01/2025.
[4]Jane Tolerton, 'Sexual health - Sexual health, 1914–1945', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Page 2, https://teara.govt.nz/en/sexual-health/page-2 accessed 28/01/2025; New Zealand History, ‘Ettie Rose, Safe Sex campaigner’, Ministry of Culture and Heritage, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/ettie-rout-safe-sex-campaigner, accessed 28/01/2025.
[5] BirtwistleWiki, About RMS Ormonde, updated 10 October 2023, https://birtwistlewiki.com.au/wiki/RMS_Ormonde, accessed 21/01/2025.
[6] Sandi Black, ‘Sling Camp and the Bulford Kiwi’ Whanganui Chronicle, 28 April 2018, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/whanganui-chronicle/news/museum-sling-camp-and-the-bulford-kiwi/J6C4LY7SACW3T3NZS4PLOOG32A/, accessed 21/01/2025.
[7] Ngatapuweae New Zealand Government, The Logistics of War, https://ngatapuwae.govt.nz/insights/the-logistics-of-war/index.html, accessed 21/01/2025.
[8] O.E Burton, ‘The Auckland Regiment’, 1922, https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/webarchive/20210104000423/http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1Auck-t1-body-d29.html, pp. 255 – 259, accessed 28/01/2025.
