Australian Recognition of mothers, wives, grandmothers, sisters and daughters in war

During WW1 Eva Cotterill nee Trezise’s husband, George, was at the front.

Eva had five brothers, of whom two – Roy (Clement Roy) and Joe – were also away at war, including Joe, who was killed in 1916.

After the war, as George’s nearest relative, Eva was awarded a blue “Female Relative badge” for her service and sacrifice during the war.

Thirty years later, Eva’s second child, born following that war, himself went to war, as did three of her brothers (Roy, yet again, and Albert and Cyril) and again the Australian government awarded her a medal as the nearest female relative of her son (I can’t be sure that this medal is for hers for her son, but it’s a WW2 mothers medal, and it is in the same box as her WW1 medal).

Eva and Joe’s mother, Jane Trezise nee Stonehouse, was also awarded a WWI badge (as opposed to a medal). She was awarded a black cloth “Mothers and Widows Badge,” for her loss of Joe. Only the metal parts survive. 

The badge, would have looked like this one held by the Australian War Memorial.

Emma nee Annear, Eva’s mother in law and George’s mother, was also awarded a medal like Eva’s for being the nearest relative of a serving man – in her case for Leonard. Emma had three sons who’d survived to adulthood, of which two served in WW1, and Leonard would again serve during WW2.

A generation later, in the 1970s, Eva and Emma’s granddaughter was able to join the Defence Force herself.

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