The near misses of the Morton Letter, 1917

The state’s first recruits arrived at Blackboy Hill Camp just twelve days after WWI was announced. Over 32,000 men would pass through the camp on their way to war, undergoing rigorous training in drills, physical reconditioning and musketry. 

This letter addressed to James Morton was originally redirected to Blackboy Hill Camp, where Morton had enlisted in August 1915. The Scottish-born Morton was quickly dispatched from Australia aboard the HMAT Ulysses in November 1915. But this letter missed him again by a matter of weeks, as the postman’s note suggests: 

Ascertained that Mr

Morton is not at (this camp)

Sailed with 16th [battalion]

Contact with Morton was very limited from this point on. In December 1916, his wife actually reached out to the army herself to ask about her husband’s condition, after Morton’s mother in Scotland informed her of a postcard from her son, explaining Morton had been taken prisoner of war in Germany and ‘had one arm taken off’! 

Morton returned from the war in 1917 but by this stage, this letter had been sent on to the Dead Letter Office, a facility that processes undeliverable mail with invalid addresses or no return address. You can see the stamp here in purple.