John ‘Jack’ McPherson Caldwell

From The Orange Wiki

CALDWELL, John McPherson ‘Jack’

Service no: 368 [1]

Place of birth: Orange, 8 December 1894

Address: Gowan Lea, Cargo Road, Orange

Occupation: Farmer

Next of kin: Isabella Caldwell (mother), Gowan Lea, Cargo Road, Orange

Date of enlistment: 26 April 1916

Place of enlistment: Randwick

Age at enlistment: 22

Fate: Embarked Commonwealth Sydney 19 September 1916. Disembarked Plymouth 14 November 1916. Promoted to Corporal 15 January 1917. Captured at Lagnicourt France by the Germans 15 April 1917. Repatriated, arrived England 16 January 1919. Returned to Australia 24 May 1919. Discharged 8 July 1919.

Date of death: 7 November 1988, Orange

John ‘Jack’ McPherson Caldwell was a farmer on the family property on Cargo Road when World War I broke out. He enlisted in April 1916 and embarked in September the same year. Initially a Private with the 5th Reinforcements of the 14th Machine Gun Company, he was promoted to Corporal in January 1917. Jack was captured and held as a German prisoner of war at Limburg from April 1917 until January 1919. He returned to Australia in May 1919.

Jack was a prominent local identity in Orange. He was elected to Canobolas Shire Council in 1942, and a year later appointed President, a position he held for many years. In 1949 he was elected President of the Shires Association of NSW, having been Vice-President for the preceding two years. Jack was also President of the Orange branch of the Country Party and a member of several other organisations, including the Orange Show Society.