Phillips, Charles Frederick, 7864 (Pte)
- catepatterson9
- Mar 31
- 2 min read
Born at Rous Mill near Lismore in 1894, Charles Frederick (Fred) Phillips enlisted at Brisbane in September 1915 aged 20 years nine months. He was single and stated his occupation as a ‘canie,’ possibly a sugar cane cutter or worker. His father was Henry Frederick William (Bill) Phillips, a Montville farmer.
Fred left Australia in November 1915, and after serving on active service in France, transferred to the 4thField Artillery Unit. Equipped with 18 pounder guns and, for a time, Howitzers, this unit was involved in most of the great battles along the Western Front.
In June 1918 Fred Phillips was reported to have received gunshot wounds to his back, thigh and face and was hospitalised.
He returned to service in November 1918 and was reported to have been wounded again but this was later modified as ‘not wounded but accidentally injured.’
After long years of continuous service and exhausted by combat and illness, when news of armistice came through the Brigade’s diary records “News was taken quietly by the troops.”
Fred spent time in a military hospital at Cambridge before returning to Australia aboard HMAT Derbyshire for discharge in June 1919.
Back in Montville Fred bought a horse team planning to be a driver, but when that venture was not successful, he took up fruit carrying. Fred bought a motor lorry and then another and employed two drivers but got into financial difficulty and sold the business cheaply. The business was called Phillips’ Pioneer Motor Service and many a Montville youngster remembers thrilling rides to the beach in Mr Phillips’ motor lorry for St Mary’s Annual Sunday School picnics.
Fred Phillips then went to Gympie for several months in 1928 where he hauled timber. Later in 1928 he was forced to declare bankruptcy. In court he attributed this to inexperience in business, bad luck and poor health since the war.
His luck changed with his marriage to Elsie May Mannion in March 1930. Elsie was the daughter of an early Montville pioneering couple, John and Daisy Mannion, who had moved to Montville in the early 1900s with all three children attending the Razorback Provisional School. The family had a dairy farm 1.5 miles from Montville on the Flaxton Road and were heavily involved in all aspects of Montville community life. They were good friends with Fred’s family who were also an early pioneering family arriving in Montville at the same time.
Fred and Elsie had two daughters, Cooee and Echo, and a son, Ian, who all attended the Montville School. Fred further committed to the Montville community when he was installed to the Montville Lodge as a Brother, in 1936.
The couple continued to farm until the late 1940s when they moved to Chermside, Brisbane following the death of both of Elsie’s parents.
Fred Phillips died in Brisbane in May 1969.
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