Copy of a portrait of Herbert Frank Mander

The soldier portrayed here is wearing shoulder insignia of the 21st Reinforcements, and cap and collar badges of the Wellington Regiment. The negative is inscribed 'Manders'.

There was  no  man named 'Manders' who enlisted with New Zealand forces during the First World War, but the soldier depicted can be identified as Herbert Frank MANDER, service number  33399.

Herbert Frank Mander was born at Wellington on 21 November 1895.  When he enlisted on 19 September 1916 he was working for the Post Office as a messenger and living with his mother, Sarah, at 20 Pitt Street Wadestown. 

Herbert was posted to the 3rd Battalion, Wellington Infantry Regiment and embarked from Wellington with the 21st Reinforcements on 19 January 1917.
The original of this portrait museum have been taken some time prior to his departure from New Zealand, as he is wearing cap and collar badges of the Wellington Regiment and shoulder insignia of the 21st Reinforcements. Once in camp in England, he would no longer have been required to wear his  21st  Reinforcements insignia. 

Herbert began his active service with the Wellington Regiment in France on 28 May 1917.  He was reported wounded in action on 18 June, although the wound could not have been too serious as he rejoined his unit two days later.

Herbert was wounded again, this time in unusual circumstances, on 22 September.  As the report on his file states, Herbert 'was shaving alongside a hedge and was struck on the head by a bottle thrown over the hedge by Private Gordon who was cleaning up his tent. [This] was in performance of military duty and [Private Gordon] was not to blame.'

Herbert's injury, and a bout of dysentery he suffered in early 1918, led to his repatriation to New Zealand, where he was discharged from the NZEF as 'no longer physically fit for war service, on 8 August 1918.

He resumed his career with the Post Office, and died at Wellington on 27 August 1966.