PM pays tribute to Digger Ted

Eulogy to a National Hero

"Last Gallipoli Campaign Veteran Dies"

"His death removes the last New South Wales link with the most defining moment in Australia's history"   Prime Minister John Howard said.     "He was the last survivor of the men who went ashore in the first Gallipoli landing at dawn on April 1915."

Mr Matthews died peacefully in an RSL nursing home at Collaroy in Sydney.  He celebrated his 101th birthday on Remembrance Day chatting to John Howard about the stupidity of politicians and the importance of history.  He blamed the Gallipoli fiasco on "bloody fools" of the British Empire and believed war was pointless.  Mr Matthews was born at Leichhardt on November 11, 1896.   He left school at 14 to become a carpenter.  He was 17 when his knowledge of morse code got him an early entry to 1st Division Signals.   "I signed up when I was young and impulsive and stupid" Mr Matthews said.    He was 18 when he landed at Gallipoli

"We landed before light and bodies lay everywhere before we knew it," he said.     He would not have seen his 19th birthday if he had not been carrying a thick pocketbook his mother gave him.        It bore the brunt of Turkish shrapnel in the chest a few hours after landing.   Not only was he one of the first ashore at Gallipoli but he was one of the last to leave after the aborted eight month campaign that left 11,410 Anzacs dead.   He saw out the entire four years of WWI later serving in France and Belgium.

He outlived two wives and a daughter.    One daughter, nice grandchildren and several great grandchildren survive him.

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It was discovered in 1919 on a beach in the vicinity of Fisherman's Hut by Australian War Memorial founder Charles Bean.      The gallery redevelopment continues this month (January 1998) with three due to close next month.  The Hall of Valour will reopen in June, the Pacific Gallery in December and the Post 1945 Conflicts Gallery will reopen in its new location in December.