Like many for whom Anzac Day brings family into sharp focus, Len Hatwell’s thoughts turn at this time to the trials faced by his forebears.
The Te Awamutu man’s uncle Frank, or Frances Aloysius Ligouri Hatwell, was born in Hawke’s Bay in 1893 and was killed in action at the Somme in April 1918, aged just 24.
Len Hatwell’s father Peter Hatwell, seen here with Fred Barwick manning their machine gun on WW1 duty in the Sinai. Photo by Gordon Williams
His name is included on the World War One cenotaph in Te Awamutu, one of the 58 fallen WW1 soldiers who are central to an ongoing research project being undertaken by the NZ Society of Genealogists Te Awamutu.
It was a recent story in The News that alerted Len to the project and triggered the family’s decision to disclose Frank’s details.
There is another side to Frank’s story. He was married in 1915 to Annette Selina Smith, said to have lived at the time in Te Awamutu’s Park Rd – which by happenstance is the very street in which Len lives today. The young bride, who was also known in the records as Elizabeth, died in the Spanish influenza epidemic that claimed thousands of Kiwi lives in late 1918, drawing a tragic line under that branch of the Hatwell family tree.
Neither Len’s uncle Frank, nor Frank’s wife, survived to raise a family.
Frank’s loss is also noted on the cenotaph in Woodville.
Where Frank entered the overseas WW1 arena after a 31-day posting to Samoa followed by a stint with the Canterbury Regiment in Woodville, Len’s father Peter Channel Hatwell took a more direct route to that conflict. He was part of the Wellington Mounted Rifles and served overseas for just three days short of four years, including with the Anzacs at Gallipoli. He survived to enlist in World War Two but was not posted overseas.
Len said last week: “My father came back, and I saw first hand how what he had witnessed and experienced affected him all his life.”
Len was somewhere in the middle of 12 children born to Peter and his wife. He finds it interesting to note that most of Peter’s service had been in the Middle East, including in the Gaza region – an area that is today going through another searing conflict.
Len, who was raised in Gisborne, has now been in Te Awamutu for 56 years. He and his late wife Joyce used to run an antiques business in Cambridge and Tirau – Cartwell Antiques.
Te Awamutu man Len Hatwell looking through the official papers relating to his father’s and uncle’s military service. Photo: Viv Posselt
