c1910 McWilliam / Pettigrew of Malcolmwood from Nick Rice

On 3rd February 2015, I was contacted by Nick Rice, who shared this wonderful photo adding, “My 1st cousin 3 times removed called Margaret McWilliam and her husband John Pettigrew lived at Malcolmwood Farm. The photo shows Margaret and John along with some of their 19 children. I recently posted an article about them on my The McWilliam Family page.”

I believe it must have been taken just before WW1. William Pettigrew who is second from the right on the back row was killed in 1917 aged 30 at Ypres. He had emigrated to Australia and fought with The ANZAC expeditionary force. He wrote the following poem.

Now is the creed of the ANZAC men,
The men with hearts of gold,
What we won from the foe, by the steel and gun,
By the steel and gun we hold.

From the heights afar, and the sky above,
There may come the hail of death,
But we yield no yard of the ground we won,
Till the last man yeilds his breath.

We are few—who should have been many here,
And our ranks are thinning fast,
But, by the Christ who died, for each boy who falls,
We will take toll to the last.

We are fighting now for the folks at home,
For the land from which we came,
And we are hanging on, and fighting hard,
And we are dying hard and game.

There are long quiet nights for gallant mates,
Who have fought and fighting fell,
But for everyone who has dropped his gun,
There’s a fresh Hun in Hell.

Aye,this is the creed of the ANZAC men,
The men with hearts of gold,
What we won from the foe, by the steel and gun we hold.