Tony never stops
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TIRELESS Lithgow Small Arms factory researcher and historian Tony Griffiths is seeking more family memories from Lithgow Mercury readers.
He hopes to contact descendants of skilled Australian tradesmen recruited by the government in 1916 to go to Britain to help build and work in munitions factories.
Almost 6000 were recruited around Australia — a mix of craftsmen and skilled labourers.
The criteria was that they had to be too old for military service, rejected for some other reason, or repatriated wounded soldiers.
The skilled tradesmen were called Australian Munition Workers; the others were simply called Australian War Workers.
(Even in wartime you can’t escape the English class system it seems.)
Tony knows of at least two Lithgow men who left the SAF to join the scheme and is seeking information on others.
So he’d like to contact descendants of George Witherspoon and-or Herbert Maniton Denman.
He has discovered that George returned to the SAF in 1919 but so far has lost track of Herb.
From Tony is waiting to hear from you on tgriff@bigpond.com or you can contact the Mercury. These things are always a challenge but Tony’s local inquiries have brought results in the past.