Captain WILLIAM ROBERT ASPINALL, MC

This week, we remember one of our former players who was killed 105 years ago.

The story of a Grade cricketer, a NSW Rugby player, a medical doctor, killed at 24 in The Great War.                                                                                  

                                                                Captain WILLIAM ROBERT  ASPINALL, MC

                                                                                  SUCC 1912-14                                                             

William Robert (known as Robert) Aspinall was hidden from Sydney University Cricket Club memory for over a century.

He was never  listed among those who played for the Club and who gave their lives in The Great War.

His name is not among any averages or summaries in the Club’s Annual Reports for 1912-13 and 1913-14, during the time when he was an undergraduate.

The reason for this is simple enough, if not exasperating. 3rd Grade scorebooks were lost so that the 3rd Grade averages for 1912-13 were non-existent. And there’s no mention of WR Aspinall in 1913-14, even though there’s other evidence that he played in that season.

In 1917,however, there’s  a brief reference to him at the time of the death of Major Gother Clarke, a doctor who had played for Sydney University and NSW in the late 19th century. Amidst the details of Clarke’s death in The Referee, WR Aspinall is listed as one of a number of former Sydney University sportsmen and medical graduates who had been killed in  France.  Aspinall’s obituaries were being written, but not by the Club he had represented.

His former Cricket Club made no reference to him and that silence continued until this year, 103 years after his death. Meanwhile, there’s also another connection in his family to Sydney University and The Great War.

Robert’s only sister, Dr Jessie Strathorn Aspinall (1880-1953) married Ambrose William Freeman (1873-1930). Six weeks before they were married by Jessie’s father, Reverend Arthur Ashworth Aspinall (1846-1929), one of Ambrose’s brothers, Douglas, was killed at Gallipoli, at Quinn’s Post, and  one of his cousins, Colonel HN MacLaurin, also a Sydney University 1st Grader, was killed at what is now known as MacLaurin’s Hill. Ambrose Freeman had also been a Sydney University 1st Grader, for one match, against Sydney at Rushcutters Bay Oval in October 1902. No runs. One wicket. He played no more.

From 1925, Jessie and Ambrose then lived with their four children at Berida, 6 David St Bowral. Another family, the Bradmans, had just moved from 52 Shepherd St to 20 Glebe St, a few minutes’ walk from the Freemans. Donald, the Bradman’s 17 year old son, was the talk of Bowral when he scored an astounding 234 for Bowral against Wingello during that cricket season. there is some suggestion that AW Freeman and DG Bradman were related.

From 1990, Berida, with its 43 guest rooms, adjacent to the Berida Golf Club, has been a well appointed guest house.

WR Aspinall was the youngest of the five children who survived childbirth (twin sisters died soon after birth) of Reverend Aspinall and his wife, Helen. All five became medical doctors.

One of his brothers was the medical doctor who declared Don Bradman unfit to play in the 1st Test of the infamous Bodyline series of 1932-33.

He was educated at The Scots College in Sydney where his father was the founding Principal and where he was involved in three activities that would continue to shape his life. He was a cricketer, a Rugby player and a Colour Sergeant in the Cadet Corps. 

While studying Medicine at the University of Sydney, he joined the Rugby Club where he played from 1911 until 1915, eventually earning a Blue for Rugby where he played predominantly as half back and goal kicker. These were palmy and leisured days when one could study Medicine, play Rugby and cricket, and then do one’s duty by enlisting in the 1st AIF. Three Aspinall brothers turned out for the University Rugby Club in those years. Robert began in Second Grade in 1911, before playing 1st Grade in the following three seasons.  His path to representative honours was blocked by the NSW captain, Glebe’s Fred Wood, but when Wood was unavailable to tour Queensland in June 1914, Robert made the trip and played two matches for his State, against Queenland and a Brisbane Metropolitan team.

Meanwhile, as is now evident from several recently-consulted newspaper reports of the time, he played cricket for the University 3rds in 1912-13, scoring 33 against Glebe in December 1912.

The 3rd Grade side was weak while the top sides were dominant. As it was the lowest of the Club’s sides, it suffered more regularly from exams, vacations and whatever else induced undergraduates to declare their unavailability or just not turn up!

When Aspinall made 16 and 11 against Cumberland in March 1914, 3rds were bowled out for 51 and 38. His 21 against Sydney in the same season was the highest score in University’s two innings.

He graduated MB, ChM and was RMO at Sydney Hospital when he enlisted on 21 January 1916.  His three brothers also enlisted. Their mother had died during the previous year in England where she was holidaying and their father never regained his enthusiasm for life.  Robert’s three brothers all survived and returned to Australia but Robert saw Sydney for the last time on 16 March when he embarked on the ‘Malakuta’ with the rank of Captain in the 1st Field Ambulance.

By June, he had developed pneumonia and enteritis in Egypt and such was the gravity of his sickness that he was evacuated to Wandsworth Hospital in London. He gradually recovered but it took six weeks before he was fit enough to be sent back to The Front.

At Lagnicourt In France in April 1917, his bravery earned him the Military Cross “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty”. Even though he was surrounded by German soldiers, “he displayed the utmost courage and devotion in tending the wounded under heavy fire…showed the greatest gallantry throughout.”

He never received his award and it was presented posthumously.

At Zillebeke, near Lake Ypres in Belgium, on 19 July 1917, he had come under heavy shelling which continued for some time. At 11am the next day while attending to a number of wounded men, he was hit by a shell splinter which penetrated his heart, killing him instantly.

He was still only 24 years old.

He was a young man of undoubted bravery, of prodigious promise, one who set the highest standards in generosity in all that he did. 

His remains lie now in Reningheist New Military Cemetery, Belgium, Plot III, Row E, Grave 28.

And he has now been found and finally recognised.

James Rodgers