Raymond Moult-Spiers Raymond Moult-Spiers i(7443023 works by)
Born: Established: 9 Feb 1920 London,
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England,
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
; Died: Ceased: 1995 Stradbroke Island, Moreton Bay, Brisbane - South East, Brisbane, Queensland,
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: ca. 1938
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BiographyHistory

Raymond Moult-Spiers arrived in Australia in the late 1930s. He worked on a farm in Avoca in New South Wales and joined the Army on 21 June 1940. He was one of the earliest members of the 2/19th Battalion, 8th Division and left Australia with the division on the Queen Mary, on 4 February 1941, arriving in Singapore on 18 February 1941. As Ron Mumford writes in Echoes of War in Avoca 'the 2/19th was to hold the unenviable record of losing more men than any other Australian battalion formed during World War II'. (90)

On the surrender of Singapore Moult-Spiers became a prisoner of war, and in April 1943 he 'was one of 3,400 Australians of F Force who were taken from Singapore to work on the railway in Thailand.' (91) While a prisoner of war Moult-Spiers kept a diary. The diary included sketches painted with brushes made of bamboo sticks and his own hair with paint made from pigments of red and yellow clay and vegetables.

Moult-Spiers returned to Australia on 10 October 1945 and after three months in hospital was discharged on 19 February 1946. After his return to Australia he worked as a storekeeper and post master at Horsley Park in New South Wales and bought a small farm. He continued to paint, exhibiting in Sydney and Auckland. He later moved to Stradbroke Island in Queensland.

Moult-Spiers wrote a poem 'The Railway', composed, according to correspondence by the author, on the Thailand-Burma Railway 'while treking with F Force from Ban Pong to Nikki No. 1 [1943]'. The poem in manuscript and correspondence from the author on the poem's composition are held in the UNSW Canberra, Academy Library's collection.

Source: Mumford, Ron. Echoes of War in Avoca (Avoca, New South Wales : Avoca Australia Remembers Committee in association with Berrima District Historical & Family History Society, c. 2011)

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Ron Mumford gives Raymond Moult-Spiers birth year as 1920. Mumford writes that Moult-Spiers 'gave his year of birth as 1919' on his enlistment papers. (90)

Last amended 21 Jul 2014 09:59:26
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