Following is a copy of an article written by Kathie Reith for the May2013 edition of the Society newsletter.
Tintern – an enduring reminder of an early Roseville family and their sad loss in WWI.
Remarkably, because is it not protected by heritage listing, Tintern still stands, at 205 Pacific Highway Lindfield, one of the very few original houses along the highway in Roseville/Lindfield. Built about 1903, it is a single storey, Federation Queen Anne style house, and for many years was home to Walter Shaw, his wife Frances Geraldine nee Archbold and their three children.
Enid, their youngest daughter wrote: ‘My grandfather [Richard Archbold] divided his land from Eton Road to Clanville Road between his daughters and when I was about six my parents built a home on the corner of Eton Road and … Pacific Highway. The house was named “Tintern” after the famous abbey...’
Enid was born in 1896, Mabel in 1895 and Ernest in 1892. Ernest studied accountancy. Mabel attended Ravenswood, then helped look after their mother. Enid went to Lindfield College, on the corner of Lindfield and Russell Avenues, and later took up nursing. When WWI broke out, Enid and her friends joined the Roseville Voluntary Aid Detachment.
Ernest enlisted in March 1916, his attestation papers signed on ANZAC Day 1916. At the time he was working as a clerk with the AMP Society in Tamworth. He joined the 33rd Battalion, formed in early 1916 in Armidale. The 33rd later became part of the 9th Brigade, 3rd Australian Division.
Shaw left Sydney on HMAT Anchises on 24 August 1916 and by the end of November he was in France. The 33rd’s first major encounter was the battle of Messines that began on 7 June 1917. Shaw was killed on 23 July when a shell exploded in the trench he and three others were occupying. Buried close to where he fell, he was re-interred in Bethleem Farm West Military Cemetery. Enid wrote: ‘Many of the
young men of our circle did not return.’
Despite the tragedy of losing their only brother, the two sisters had happy memories of their childhood. Most of their relatives lived nearby and they ‘were never without playmates and friends’. After their parents’ deaths, Walter in 1923 and Frances in 1935, the two sisters remained in Tintern for over sixty years. Enid left for a time, serving during WWII with the 102nd AG Hospital in Brisbane. At some stage the house was converted into two flats. In the last years of her life Mabel was cared for at Milton Nursing Home. Enid
moved to Archbold House, built in Trafalgar Avenue on the site of their Uncle Jim’s old home.
Information on the family was taken from WD Archbold’s history The Archbolds of Roseville; WWI notes from the personnel file of EA Shaw, the history of the 33rd Battalion and the unit diaries.
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