Alexander Duncan Mathieson was the son of Alexander Mathieson and Jessie McArthur. Alexander Snr was born in Argylshire in Scotland, where his father was a farmer, and moved with his family to the property Kilberry in Coleraine, Victoria, in 1865. In 1889 he moved to New Zealand and that year married Jessie McArthur of St James’ Station. The family farmed in various areas, and Alexander Snr settled finally at Hanmer Springs and died in 1911. Jessie later moved to Christchurch.
Alexander Jnr, or Alex as he described himself even on official forms, was working as a farmer at Cheviot in Canterbury, probably on the family property, when he joined the army in July 1916. After training in New Zealand he left for England in November 1916, arriving at Devonport in January 1917 and going to Sling Camp near Salisbury and Etaples in France for further training. He first saw action in France in late May 1917.
Within two weeks he was wounded, and admitted to hospital in France with shell shock and burns. Alex spent most of the remaining months of 1917 in hospitals in France. By the end of the year he was back in England, classified as unfit, and on 1 February 1918 he embarked for New Zealand on the Willochra. He was discharged from the army in April 1918 as being no longer fit for war service on account of wounds received in action (gas poisoning).
Just before the war ended, on 24 October 1918, Alexander Duncan Mathieson died in hospital in Hamilton, Victoria, Australia from the effects of being gassed (as well as TB, meningitis and ‘exhaustion’). He was buried on 26 October in the Presbyterian section of the Hamilton Public Cemetery. Alex still had family in the Hamilton/Coleraine area in that part of Australia, and I suspect he had gone there for a warmer climate.
Alex is commemorated on the Maheno war memorial in Otago, where the family had at one time lived. He was the brother of John McArthur Mathieson, who was killed in action in July 1917. Their other brother, Roderick Archibald Mathieson, moved to Australia to farm. He married Caroline Gladys Tait; they died in 1968 and 1969 respectively and are buried in Casterton cemetery near Glen Elg in Victoria.
