Michael Smith was born in Melbourne, Australia, in the spring of 1878. Details of his early life are scarce, but he seems to have been one of five children to Michael and Mary Smith.

Michael Jr married Lucy Mungovan, twelve years his senior, on 7th August 1915. By this point he had moved to Sydney and was working as a cook. The couple had had a son, William, in 1903, and the wedding seems to have been a way of formalising their relationship in anticipation of the coming war.

Michael Jr enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 13th July 1916. His service records show that, at 38 years of age, he was 5ft 3.5ins (1.61m) tall and weighed 125lbs (56.7kg). A Roman Catholic, he had brown hair, although he was balding, blue eyes and a fresh brown complexion. He was also noted as having two scars: one on the back of his right shoulder, the other on the back of his right thigh.

Assigned to the 45th Battalion of the Australian Infantry, Private Smith’s unit left Sydney on 7th October 1916 for its seven week voyage to Britain. The A40 Ceramic troop ship reached Plymouth, Devon, on 21st November, and Michael was marched to the ANZAC base in Codford, Wiltshire the same day.

The voyage took its toll on the soldiers, and Private Smith was not to be immune. Within a fortnight he had been admitted to the Military Hospital in Sutton Veny, five miles to the north west. He was suffering from pneumonia, but it was to prove too late. He passed away on 5th December 1916 – the day he arrived at the hospital – at the age of 38.

Thousands of miles from home, the body of Michael Smith was laid to rest in the extension to St Mary’s Churchyard in Codford, Wiltshire.

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The shock of her husband’s death was to prove too much for Lucy. She passed away on 16th January 1918, at the age of 52.

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