John Rutherford BORTHWICK
2 April 1897 – 7 June 1917
Regimental number 10/3195
When John Borthwick (or Jack as he was known) enlisted to join the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on 23 August 1915, he was only 18 years old. This means that he was two years under recruitment age. Like so many other men enlisting throughout the war years he seems to have falsified his birth date, and told the authorities he had been born on 2 April 1895, when the birth date given on his registration was 2 April 1897.
After preliminary training at Trentham Camp Jack sailed from Wellington on 13 November 1915.[1] He disembarked at Suez on 2 February 1916 and was assigned to 1st Battalion Wellington Infantry Regiment. The training continued while the Battalion was based at Moascar Camp near Ismailia on the west bank of the Suez Canal: a mix of lectures and practice to develop the skills a soldier would need and route marches to build fitness. The Official History described the training as ‘strenuous’[2] and mentioned ‘a certain amount of acrimony’ initially between the new arrivals and the veterans of Gallipoli until shared experiences and training for new roles helped to inculcate loyalty to the new Regiment. ‘The hot days followed by the cold Egyptian night, and the camping on the sands of the desert took their toll of the men in dysentery and enteritis’, Jack apparently among them. In late March, he was hospitalised for a week but had recovered in time to rejoin the Battalion when it embarked for France on 6 April.
Within a few days, their ship berthed at Marseilles and they travelled by train to northern France. It was the first experience of the new soldiers marching on pavé roads surfaced with rounded stones the size of a fist. Without strong boots, such roads were painful to walk on, and the supply of boots fell well short of need. Many soldiers fell out of the march and the chiropodists were kept busy. By 12 May, however, the 1st Battalion had moved into Armentières, at that time largely unscathed by gunfire and with many French civilians apparently unperturbed as they carried on with their daily life. When not at the front line, most of the Battalion’s time was taken up with repairing, building up and strengthening the trenches. When the demands for working parties permitted, the troops also continued their programme of training, which covered a range of skills: making wire entanglements, sniping, signalling and bombing.[3] June saw few active engagements, but at the beginning of July, the 1st Battalion carried out what the Official History described as ‘a highly successful raid’[4] which brought back information about the enemy’s defences and documents about the disposition of German troops at the area. In contrast to the quiet time in June, there was almost continuous artillery fire from both sides during July and raids almost every night. At the beginning of August Jack was wounded in his right leg. He was evacuated to England and moved through a succession of hospitals – Chelsea, Brockenhurst, Codford – before he had recovered sufficiently to return to his Battalion in France on 8 December 1916.
His return to the field coincided with very cold weather. With snow thick on the ground, frostbite was common for a time, but there is no mention on his Army personnel file that Jack was one of those afflicted. Daily foot inspections and whale oil massages seemed to work for him. The snow made it harder for the Battalion to undertake patrols when they were in the line, but working parties continued.
At the end of March 1917, the 1st Battalion reached Ploegsteert Wood where they learned about the role assigned to the New Zealand Division in the coming offensive: to capture the village of Messines. During the next few weeks, attention focused on preparations for the battle ahead, including digging a new trench – a ‘ticklish business’ carried out at night to minimise the chances of being observed. After many weeks of trench life, the 1st Battalion had a break, everyone could have a bath,[5] and the soldiers could then look forward to training for the planned offensive sandwiched between further spells in working parties.
On 6 June 1917, the eve of the battle for Messines, the 1st Battalion moved forward to the designated assembly trenches as planned, sustaining some casualties in the process. Zero hour was ten past three in the morning of 7 June, and 45 minutes later, the Battalion moved forward to play its part in the capture of Messines. All told, they gained seven machine guns and close to 200 prisoners. More broadly, the military objectives for taking Messines were met and the battle was rated a success. For the 1st Wellington Battalion, the cost over the five days from 6 to 10 June, was 73 killed, 8 missing and 337 wounded. One of the soldiers killed was Jack Borthwick, by then a 20-year-old. He died on 7 June 1917, the day of the assault and just over 14 months from the day he landed in France.
John Rutherford Borthwick was one of seven New Zealanders (three of them from the Wellington Regiment) buried in the Lindenhoek Chalet Military Cemetery in Belgium. All had been killed on 7 or 8 June 1917.
Jack had been brought up in the South Island. His parents, John Adamson Borthwick and Isabella, née DODDS, were living in Dunedin at the time of his birth. John was born in Greenwich, London in 1874. Isabella was 21 and John 24 when they married not long before Jack’s birth in April 1897. One year after Jack was born he was joined by a brother, James and in 1902, a sister named Ruby. The Borthwick children were enrolled at several Dunedin schools: George Street, Albany Street, Green Island and North-East Valley, until the family left the district. In 1908, when Jack was 11, Isabella died, aged 31, and was buried in the Northern Cemetery in Dunedin.
After just over two years of widowhood John married again, in 1911. His second wife was Charlotte Elizabeth MONIGATTI, known as Elizabeth, born in the tiny settlement of Sergeant’s Hill, just north of Westport in 1884. Her father, Giovanni Tommaso (John Thomas) Monigatti, was born in Switzerland, but lived in Sergeant’s Hill for many years.
John and Elizabeth had two children – a son (1912) and a daughter (1913). John senior re-appears in the official record on the Tasman Electoral Roll in 1914, where he was described as a cement burner living at Tarakohe, near Takaka[6]. It seems likely that Jack did not go with his father to Tarakohe, or at least did not stay there for long. In 1913, a John R Borthwick achieved passes in English, arithmetic and elementary book-keeping while a student at the Wellington Technical College.[7] Perhaps he was studying part-time or perhaps this study supported his application to the Union Steam Ship Co for work as a clerk. In any event, that was his job at the time that he enlisted in 1915.
No connection has been found which explains why Jack is named on the Aro Valley Memorial. He didn’t attend Mitchelltown School, nor did his immediate family live in the Aro Valley area. There may however have been relatives who have not been identified who wanted to commemorate their young family member, and subscribed to the list of names of men who were killed.
Jack’s name is also inscribed on the Takaka War Memorial, incorrectly spelt as J. BOTHWICK on the original panels which are displayed in the porch of the County Council offices, but corrected on newer war memorial panels in a nearby park.
Jack’s father lived until 1944, when he died in Wellington and was buried in the Public section of Karori Cemetery. His wife Charlotte was buried with him when she too died in 1966.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
[1] Two troop transport ships sailed on the same day, the Willochra and the Tofua, carrying the 2,585 recruitment who made up the 8th Reinforcements for the NZEF. It is not clear which ship Jack had boarded.
[2] Official History of the Wellington Regiment (NZEF) 1914 – 1919, W H Cunningham, C A L Treadwell and J S Hanna, Ferguson and Osborn Ltd, 1928, p 90.
[3] Ibid, p 99.
[4] Ibid, p 103.
[5] Ibid, p 145–146.
[6] Tarakohe is a small port in Golden Bay, where nearby there are “abundant materials for the production of Portland cement, with a 30-metre-thick belt of tertiary arenaceous limestone extending over about 24 square km”.[6] There has been a cement works adjacent to the port since some Nelson and Wellington businessmen established the Golden Bay Cement Company in 1908. A timber wharf was built in 1910 and cement production was underway by November 1911. See http://theprow.org.n/tarakohe-cement/#.WfuOKIhx3IU.
[7] The Dominion, 17 December 1913, accessed from Papers Past on 27 September 2017.
2 April 1897 – 7 June 1917
Regimental number 10/3195
When John Borthwick (or Jack as he was known) enlisted to join the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on 23 August 1915, he was only 18 years old. This means that he was two years under recruitment age. Like so many other men enlisting throughout the war years he seems to have falsified his birth date, and told the authorities he had been born on 2 April 1895, when the birth date given on his registration was 2 April 1897.
After preliminary training at Trentham Camp Jack sailed from Wellington on 13 November 1915.[1] He disembarked at Suez on 2 February 1916 and was assigned to 1st Battalion Wellington Infantry Regiment. The training continued while the Battalion was based at Moascar Camp near Ismailia on the west bank of the Suez Canal: a mix of lectures and practice to develop the skills a soldier would need and route marches to build fitness. The Official History described the training as ‘strenuous’[2] and mentioned ‘a certain amount of acrimony’ initially between the new arrivals and the veterans of Gallipoli until shared experiences and training for new roles helped to inculcate loyalty to the new Regiment. ‘The hot days followed by the cold Egyptian night, and the camping on the sands of the desert took their toll of the men in dysentery and enteritis’, Jack apparently among them. In late March, he was hospitalised for a week but had recovered in time to rejoin the Battalion when it embarked for France on 6 April.
Within a few days, their ship berthed at Marseilles and they travelled by train to northern France. It was the first experience of the new soldiers marching on pavé roads surfaced with rounded stones the size of a fist. Without strong boots, such roads were painful to walk on, and the supply of boots fell well short of need. Many soldiers fell out of the march and the chiropodists were kept busy. By 12 May, however, the 1st Battalion had moved into Armentières, at that time largely unscathed by gunfire and with many French civilians apparently unperturbed as they carried on with their daily life. When not at the front line, most of the Battalion’s time was taken up with repairing, building up and strengthening the trenches. When the demands for working parties permitted, the troops also continued their programme of training, which covered a range of skills: making wire entanglements, sniping, signalling and bombing.[3] June saw few active engagements, but at the beginning of July, the 1st Battalion carried out what the Official History described as ‘a highly successful raid’[4] which brought back information about the enemy’s defences and documents about the disposition of German troops at the area. In contrast to the quiet time in June, there was almost continuous artillery fire from both sides during July and raids almost every night. At the beginning of August Jack was wounded in his right leg. He was evacuated to England and moved through a succession of hospitals – Chelsea, Brockenhurst, Codford – before he had recovered sufficiently to return to his Battalion in France on 8 December 1916.
His return to the field coincided with very cold weather. With snow thick on the ground, frostbite was common for a time, but there is no mention on his Army personnel file that Jack was one of those afflicted. Daily foot inspections and whale oil massages seemed to work for him. The snow made it harder for the Battalion to undertake patrols when they were in the line, but working parties continued.
At the end of March 1917, the 1st Battalion reached Ploegsteert Wood where they learned about the role assigned to the New Zealand Division in the coming offensive: to capture the village of Messines. During the next few weeks, attention focused on preparations for the battle ahead, including digging a new trench – a ‘ticklish business’ carried out at night to minimise the chances of being observed. After many weeks of trench life, the 1st Battalion had a break, everyone could have a bath,[5] and the soldiers could then look forward to training for the planned offensive sandwiched between further spells in working parties.
On 6 June 1917, the eve of the battle for Messines, the 1st Battalion moved forward to the designated assembly trenches as planned, sustaining some casualties in the process. Zero hour was ten past three in the morning of 7 June, and 45 minutes later, the Battalion moved forward to play its part in the capture of Messines. All told, they gained seven machine guns and close to 200 prisoners. More broadly, the military objectives for taking Messines were met and the battle was rated a success. For the 1st Wellington Battalion, the cost over the five days from 6 to 10 June, was 73 killed, 8 missing and 337 wounded. One of the soldiers killed was Jack Borthwick, by then a 20-year-old. He died on 7 June 1917, the day of the assault and just over 14 months from the day he landed in France.
John Rutherford Borthwick was one of seven New Zealanders (three of them from the Wellington Regiment) buried in the Lindenhoek Chalet Military Cemetery in Belgium. All had been killed on 7 or 8 June 1917.
Jack had been brought up in the South Island. His parents, John Adamson Borthwick and Isabella, née DODDS, were living in Dunedin at the time of his birth. John was born in Greenwich, London in 1874. Isabella was 21 and John 24 when they married not long before Jack’s birth in April 1897. One year after Jack was born he was joined by a brother, James and in 1902, a sister named Ruby. The Borthwick children were enrolled at several Dunedin schools: George Street, Albany Street, Green Island and North-East Valley, until the family left the district. In 1908, when Jack was 11, Isabella died, aged 31, and was buried in the Northern Cemetery in Dunedin.
After just over two years of widowhood John married again, in 1911. His second wife was Charlotte Elizabeth MONIGATTI, known as Elizabeth, born in the tiny settlement of Sergeant’s Hill, just north of Westport in 1884. Her father, Giovanni Tommaso (John Thomas) Monigatti, was born in Switzerland, but lived in Sergeant’s Hill for many years.
John and Elizabeth had two children – a son (1912) and a daughter (1913). John senior re-appears in the official record on the Tasman Electoral Roll in 1914, where he was described as a cement burner living at Tarakohe, near Takaka[6]. It seems likely that Jack did not go with his father to Tarakohe, or at least did not stay there for long. In 1913, a John R Borthwick achieved passes in English, arithmetic and elementary book-keeping while a student at the Wellington Technical College.[7] Perhaps he was studying part-time or perhaps this study supported his application to the Union Steam Ship Co for work as a clerk. In any event, that was his job at the time that he enlisted in 1915.
No connection has been found which explains why Jack is named on the Aro Valley Memorial. He didn’t attend Mitchelltown School, nor did his immediate family live in the Aro Valley area. There may however have been relatives who have not been identified who wanted to commemorate their young family member, and subscribed to the list of names of men who were killed.
Jack’s name is also inscribed on the Takaka War Memorial, incorrectly spelt as J. BOTHWICK on the original panels which are displayed in the porch of the County Council offices, but corrected on newer war memorial panels in a nearby park.
Jack’s father lived until 1944, when he died in Wellington and was buried in the Public section of Karori Cemetery. His wife Charlotte was buried with him when she too died in 1966.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
[1] Two troop transport ships sailed on the same day, the Willochra and the Tofua, carrying the 2,585 recruitment who made up the 8th Reinforcements for the NZEF. It is not clear which ship Jack had boarded.
[2] Official History of the Wellington Regiment (NZEF) 1914 – 1919, W H Cunningham, C A L Treadwell and J S Hanna, Ferguson and Osborn Ltd, 1928, p 90.
[3] Ibid, p 99.
[4] Ibid, p 103.
[5] Ibid, p 145–146.
[6] Tarakohe is a small port in Golden Bay, where nearby there are “abundant materials for the production of Portland cement, with a 30-metre-thick belt of tertiary arenaceous limestone extending over about 24 square km”.[6] There has been a cement works adjacent to the port since some Nelson and Wellington businessmen established the Golden Bay Cement Company in 1908. A timber wharf was built in 1910 and cement production was underway by November 1911. See http://theprow.org.n/tarakohe-cement/#.WfuOKIhx3IU.
[7] The Dominion, 17 December 1913, accessed from Papers Past on 27 September 2017.