Comte Corporal Gontran Louis Henri Marie Philippe de Tournouër

Comte Corporal Gontran Louis Henri Marie Philippe de Tournouër

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Mr James Donaldson

Comte Corporal Gontran Louis Henri Marie Philippe de Tournouër was born on 27 August 1885 at Vendome, Loir-et-Cher, France, the second child of Louis Marie Maurice de Tournouër and Marie Cecile Laffitte. His family where the younger branch of an old French noble household from Brittany. Gontran had one older brother, Jacques Joseph Marie (b.1884) and four younger siblings René Raoul Marie (b. 1887); Roger (b. 1889); Odette (b. 1890) and Jean (b. 1893).

Gontran was educated in Paris at the Sorbonne where he received a Bachelor of Letters and also matriculated in Arts at the University of Queensland after emigrating. He is said to have travelled extensively in Central and South America and to have served with the French army in 1903, possibly in North Africa, where he had experience with camels.

Gontran's parents were divorced and his mother and the five youngest children, including Gontran, immigrated to Australia in 1903, arriving into Sydney aboard the Miltiades on 12 May 1904. After their arrival, the family took up sugar growing and grazing in the Wide Bay area. Gontran's mother had remarried in 1904, to a Mr William Miller. On 23 September 1909 Gontran married Hellen Lydia Waraker. At the time he was living on his property, Coetquen Plantation, at Bauple in the Wide Bay region. His wife was from Tiaro. At some point before his marriage, Gontran had worked for the French Messageries Maritimes merchant shipping company in Melbourne.

In 1911 Gontran became a Justice of the Peace and in 1913 sold off his land around Tiaro to make the move to Brisbane. Here he found work as a clerk with the Government Savings Bank and served as a Lance Sergeant with the 2nd Light Horse Regiment, Citizen Military Forces.

Gontran enlisted for service in the First World War in Brisbane on 21 August 1914. His service number was 109. He was placed in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment's A Squadron and promoted to Corporal before the unit left Brisbane. On 29 September the unit embarked on the Star of England for Egypt, arriving by late February. The unit were stationed at Heliopolis outside Cairo before taking part in the defence of the Suez Canal following Ottoman and German attacks in early 1915.

In February 1915 Gontran was kicked in the abdomen by a horse, a significant injury and one of the many non-combat hazards encountered in camp and on operations by members of the Light Horse. On 12 April he underwent surgery at the 1st Australian Filed Hospital for a double hernia and on 9 May he was placed on the list for evacuation to Australia. In a letter to a Mrs Rees in South Australia, published in the Kapunda Herald on 3 March 1916, Gontran describes how he 'stowed away' with a unit of New Zealanders heading to the front, but was discovered, and managed to get himself a job as a records clerk with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force's 3rd Echelon Headquarters, ironically responsible for military discipline. A month later he was transferred to the 2nd Light Horse Details Camp in Alexandria to be the Orderly Room Sergeant, an administrative role in charge of regimental records. In this role he held the rank of Lance Sergeant and was promoted to acting Sergeant on 20 July.

A details camp held soldiers for training before return to their units, or return to Australia, but it is difficult to track Gontran's time with the unit in 1915. During this period, he was classified as 'Class C', a medical grading making him unfit for active service. Gontran appealed his case seven times before finding a doctor who would classify him 'Class A' which allowed him to return to his unit.

During his extended time in Egypt, Gontran acquired a series of seven early Islamic antiquities from the excavations at Fustat, the original capital of Egypt, founded in AD 641 by 'Amr ibn al-'As. These artefacts were donated to the Queensland Museum in October 1917. A letter accompanying the donation notes that the artefacts came from a house excavated at Fustat, at a depth of 50 feet, and that Gontran acquired them thanks to Ali Bey Bahgat, curator of the Museum of Arab Art, Cairo (now the Museum of Islamic Art). Baghat has been described as one of the fathers of Egyptian archaeology and was the first person to open excavations at Fustat in 1912.

Of Turkish ancestry, but raised in Egypt, Baghat was fluent in Arabic and Turkish, as well as English, German and French. Baghat ran the first excavations at Fustat as a recovery operation: local fertiliser diggers would bring him their finds, and he would record them and map the city as it was uncovered. It wasn't until 1918 that there were funds to begin proper excavations. One way that these excavations were funded was the sale of duplicate artefacts from the Museum collection, and this must be how Gontran came to acquire the Queensland Museum pieces. This practice was widespread in the first half of the 20th century.

In December 1915 Gontran returned to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment at Heliopolis and reverted to the rank of Corporal. Most of the unit were still on the Gallipoli Peninsular when Gontran arrived back at camp, but the evacuation was imminent and the unit returned in late December, concentrating at the Heliopolis camp.

In late January 1916 Gontran was transferred to the Camel Transport Corps, perhaps owing to his previous experience with camels, gained while serving with the French army in 1903. However, during this period he seems to have contracted a fever and spent a week in hospital before returning to the Camel Transport Corps and being returned to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment. During this time, he apparently held the rank of Warrant Officer, specifically the Company Quartermaster Sergeant, but this was never officially recognised.

After a brief stay with the 1st Light Horse Training Regiment at Tel el-Kebir, Gontran was transferred to the 4th Divisional Artillery Brigade. The Brigade was bound for the Western Front and it is hard not to think that Gontran applied for the transfer out of a desire to serve in his homeland. It was around this time that it became clear the Light Horse units would not be going to the Western Front.

In June 1916 Gontran proceeded overseas to France aboard the Oriana, arriving in Marseilles, and in September he was appointed to the 11th Field Artillery Brigade's 111th Howitzer Battery. Here he served as a Gunner in No. 2 section. The unit was stationed outside Ypres, Belgium, at Dickebusch and Boescheppe where they were involved in shelling enemy lines, including providing preliminary bombardments for raids carried out by infantry units.

On 19 October 1916 Gontran's hernia was again giving him trouble and he was admitted to the 3rd (Canadian) Casualty Clearing station via the 4th Field Ambulance. From here he was transferred through various hospitals and rest camps before being transferred to the Middlesex War Hospital outside St Albans with an acute undescended left testicle. His condition was listed as severe. After undergoing treatment, Gontran was discharged in early January 197 to No. 1 Command Depot where he was classified at C1, qualifying him only for Garrison Service at Home Camps.

Unfortunately for Gontran, his hernia was again causing problems in February 1917 and he was admitted to Tidworth Military Hosital in Wiltshire for additional treatment. By the time he returned to duty at Perham Downs Camp in late February 1917 he was classified as C3 (Sedentary Service at Home Camps), meaning that he would be returned to Australia.

On 8 April 1917 Gontran embarked on HT Barambah for return to Australia. He was discharged as medically unfit in Brisbane on 18 July 1917. He received the 1914-15 Star (2080), British War Medal (792) and Victory Medal (792) for his service.

All of Gontran's family saw service during the war, and several where killed. An article in the Sydney Mail from October 1917 tells their stories, which can also be pieced together from other sources. Gontran's father was the commanding officer of the 9th Chasseurs and part of the French General Staff at Verdun. He was a knight of the French Legion of Honour and died of blood poisoning in January 1917. Elder brother, Jacques, was a Corporal in the 2nd Zouaves Regiment. He received the Croix de Guerre and Palm, was wounded three times and was Mentioned in Despatches four times. He was killed in action on 6 June 1915.

Gontran's younger brother, Rene, tried to enlist in Australia but was rejected. Instead, he travelled to France and enlisted in the 2nd Zouaves Regiment like his elder brother. Rene rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant and also received the Croix de Guerre and Palm. He was Mentioned in Despatches three times and wounded once, before he was killed in action on 20 July 1916. He received a posthumous Legion of Honour.

Roger also travelled from Queensland to France to enlist and served with a French Howizter Battery. He too was Mentioned in Despatches twice, received the Croix de Guerre and was seriously wounded. Roger survived the war and died in 1974.

Odette served as a nurse in France during the war and was made a Dame in the French Croix Rouge. Odette died in Queensland in 1973. The youngest Tournouër, Jean, is also said to have served in the AIF, but it has not been possible to find his servide record. Jean, then going by the name John, died at Esk, Queensland in 1978.

Immediately after his discharge, Gontran worked in the Pay Office at Victoria Barracks, Brisbane, and later joined the Censor's Office, where his skills in Arabic and European languages made him invaluable. In 1918, Gontran, as assistant censor, attended a May Day event in Brisbane alongside members of the Commonwealth Investigations Branch (CIB), to monitor the event for socialist content, associated with the so-called Red Flag Riots of Brisbane in 1918-19. He also served a Lieutenant in the 9th Regiment, 2nd Battalion of the Commonwealth Military Forces until 1921.

After leaving the Censor's Office, Gontran worked at as a clerk at the State Advances Corporation, and the Queensland Agricultural Bank (now Suncorp Bank) before being appointed as the Librarian to the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock in 1922. In 1923, news reached Gontran that his cousin, the Dowager Comtesse de Tournouër, had been murdered by Bolsheviks at Kieff, Poland, along with almost all of her surviving family. With her death, the elder, title bearing part of the de Tournouër family became extinct, and the title, Comte (Count) now reverted to the younger, French branch, now headed by Gontran after his father and brother's deaths during the war. This responsibility he apparently took very seriously.

The Comte and Comtesse de Tournouër lived at 'Pontivy', 204 Clarence Road, Indooroopilly and were frequently mentioned in the social pages of Queensland's newspapers in the 1920s.
Gontran helped to found and was a prominent member of the Brisbane chapter of the Alliance Française and served several years as president and vice-patron. The Alliance Française and official visits from the French government and military were the main focus of Gontran's official activities, but he also contributed to an attended soldier's reunions for the 11th Field Artillery Battery and the 2nd Light Horse Regiment. In addition, he was an active contributor to newspapers throughout his life, particularly on French matters, and the plight of returned servicemen. In 1925 Gontran's linguistic skills, and social standing, saw him act as official interpreter to a Royal Commission concerning immigration in northern Queensland, and a short stint as the Consul in Queensland for Bolivia.

In 1928, the Comte de Tournouër was made an Officier d'Academie in the Ordre des Palmes académiques (Order of Academic Palms) for his services to science, literature and education. In 1929 he was also made a Chevalier in the Ordre du Mérite agricole (Order of Agricultural Merit) for contributions to agriculture, forestry and stock-raising. He was recommended for the French Legion of Honour several times, but never shared this distinction with his ancestors.

Gontran died at St Martin's Hospital, Brisbane, in 1929 at only 44 years old. In 1928, with he was advised to move to a cooler climate for his health, and had enquired with the Australian War Memorial in Canberra about a job in 1928 when he donated a German Officer's Corset to the collection. He never made the move, but the corset, taken from a German Prisoner of War by his father, remains in the Memorial's collection. Gontran is buried in Toowong Cemetery (plot 10-58-17) and his funeral was attended by many dignitaries including representatives of the French Government and French societies in Australia, returned service organisations and the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock. A newspaper article concerning his funeral, stated that: “The casket was draped with the Union Jack and the flag of France, and on it rested a wreath of poppies.”

Gontran was survived by his wife, Hellen, and infant daughter, Jacqueline Simonette de Tournouër (d. 2002). Jacqueline became a nurse and lived with her mother in Indooroopilly before Hellen's death in 1962. She later served with the Australian Army Nursing Corps after the Second World War, rising to the rank of Major. Jean (John) and Roger, Gontran's brothers, continued the family's pastoral pursuits in western Queensland.

Corporal

2nd Australian Light Horse Regiment

General Headquarters, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force

Imperial Camel Transport Corps

111th Howitzer Battery, 11th Australian Field Artillery Brigade

27/08/1885

13/07/1929