Jack Langley Braddock

item details

NameJack Langley Braddock

ProductionBerry & Co.; photography studio; 1917; Wellington

Classificationstudio portraits, portraits, black-and-white negatives, gelatin dry plate negatives

Materialsphotographic gelatin, sheet glass, silver, photographic plates

Materials Summaryblack and white glass negative

Techniquesblack-and-white photography

Registration NumberB.044362

Credit linePurchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds

Overview

Jack Langley Braddock, service number 44439

This photograph shows Rifleman Jack Langley Braddock before he left to serve on the Western Front in the First World War. He has a pace stick under his left arm and a New Zealand Army 'lemon squeezer' hat with the badge of the Rifle Brigade in his right hand.

The son of Frederick and Edith Braddock of Lyall Bay, Jack attended Wellington South School. Jack was 21 years old when his name was drawn in the second ballot for military service in December 1916. He was living in the Wellington suburb of Melrose and was employed as an apprentice sign-writer at Smith & Smith Ltd, located in Cuba Street. Jack's great grand-niece recalls that Jack had an uncle who worked at the Berry studio and may possibly have taken his portrait. Jack was a promising artist, taking design classes at technical college in the evenings after work. Had he come from a wealthier background, he might have gone on to study the fine arts.

He enlisted on 27 December and after basic training embarked from Wellington with the 24th Reinforcements on 5 April 1917. Two months later he arrived in England. On 6 July 1917, after four weeks' intensive training at Sling Camp, Jack left for France in the 5th Reserve Battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. Later, he served in B Company, 1st Battalion of the 3rd New Zealand Rifle Brigade.

Jack Braddock's unit endured the terrible fighting at Passchendaele, in early October 1917. Jack survived the battle, only to be struck down within weeks by cerebrospinal meningitis, which had a particularly high mortality rate during those years before the advent of penicillin. Jack contracted the disease on 3 December, in the midst of a ferocious snowstorm, and died just two days later at a casualty clearing station. He was buried near Ypres in Lijssenhoek Military Cemetery, the second largest Commonwealth cemetery in Belgium. His service is commemorated, with that of 22 other former pupils and teachers, on the Memorial gates of Kilbirnie School in Wellington.