A Sacrifice, By Any Name

Prologue

Before launching into today's story, I thought I might give an update on how my research is going. I started this blog back in 2019 as a way of communicating some of the more interesting stories about past family members, as I embarked on a 'redo' of all my original research. Having completed my Family History Diploma the year before, I'd learnt the importance of verifying information, and my family tree had plenty of information with no proven sources. 

Across the last four years I have completed the 'redo' of seven lines of the family: Phelan, Gasperino, Cowan and Davenport on Dad's side, and Atkin, Collins and Kenny on Mum's. I have also done a lot of work on the remaining maternal line, Lawless. But this line's Australian history goes back an extra generation, and has not just one but five brothers who emigrated here, so it represents by far the largest chunk of work to get through.

As of now, I estimate that I've completed about 85% of the overall 'redo' task. And of the five Lawless brothers' families, I have just two to go. People who appear in the stories I post about these families are only very distant relatives, but they are still Australian relatives, and my research goal was to cover all Australian relatives as thoroughly as possible. 

The five Lawless brothers who came to Australia from Kilkenny, Ireland were Nicholas (my direct ancestor) (1811-1868), Patrick (1822-1898), James (1826-1896), Martin (1829-1903) and Richard (1833-1904). All except James married and had families. I have already posted a few stories about descendants of Nicholas. I now move onto the descendants of Patrick, and firstly, the interesting case of Thomas James Pinto.

A Sacrifice, By Any Name

After arriving in the Port Phillip colony in 1841, Patrick Lawless and his wife Catherine (Kitty) first settled in Macedon before moving to Melbourne. After several years farming in the now suburban localities of Canterbury, Nunawading and Boronia, Patrick and Kitty then moved to Dead Horse Gully, just outside of Ballarat. It was here they had Elizabeth, the last of their 14 children (although by this stage three were already deceased). In about 1873, the family made their last move, to Wooroonook near St Arnaud.

In 1897, Elizabeth Lawless married Thomas Francis Pinto and had four children. They were still living in St Arnaud when the following appeared in Victoria's Police Gazette in 1914, regarding their second child, Thomas: 

Whether or not Thomas ever reunited with his family is unknown, because on 24 March 1915, Thomas enlisted in the AIF to serve in the Great War, and sadly, like so many others, would never return. Only there was something very unusual about his enlistment. Thomas actually enlisted as 21-year old Edward Joseph Nolan, a groom, from 'Eoroa' in Queensland. He recorded his father's name as Thomas Joseph Nolan. I can't say for certain why he chose to do this, though the Police Gazette excerpt suggests a fractious relationship with his parents. We can surmise that he was signing up without permission - he may well have not yet been 18 years old, and/or was looking to run away and did not want to be traced. 

On 5 May, Private Thomas Pinto was appointed to the 1st Reinforcements of the 23rd Battalion. His war file reveals that he was 5 foot 7 inches tall (170cm) and weighed 141 pounds (64kg), with brown eyes and black hair. Three days later he embarked from Melbourne on the transport ship the Euripides. His service in the war was short. Once at Gallipoli, he suffered tonsillitis and diphtheria resulting in hospitalisation in Malta in September. When the military authorities first tried to inform his father of his son's illness, they couldn't trace him. They could find no such locality or station named Eoroa in Queensland, as you can see in this page from the war record below:

After returning to Egypt, Thomas Pinto embarked for a return to Gallipoli on 6 October. Sometime in November, he suffered a shell wound to his back, which also fractured several ribs, and he succumbed to those injuries on 21 November 1915. Again, the authorities attempted to contact the family at the fictitious Queensland location. Further correspondence in the war file shows that somehow they managed to locate his father, despite being presumed as Thomas Nolan, at the correct address of the Pintos in St Arnaud, in March 1916. However, by that stage Thomas and Elizabeth had moved to Fitzroy and more correspondence was required to establish contact. Eventually, with the connection to family established, Elizabeth was able to alert the military to her son's correct name, and further documents in the file refer to Thomas Pinto rather than Edward Nolan. There is even a letter from as late as 1967 from Thomas' sister, also an Elizabeth, asking if she would be eligible to receive an Anzac Memorial Medallion in honour of her brother.

Thomas Joseph Pinto is buried at Gallipoli, at Ari Burnu Cemetery, half a mile north of Anzac Cove. While the correct identity of the soldier was established, and the family aware of his fate while the war still raged, it is perhaps surprising and somewhat sad to see that the plaque at Ari Burnu still remembers Thomas Pinto's sacrifice under the false name that he created all those years ago.

Thomas Joseph Pinto was my 2nd cousin, 3x removed: