Sullivan letter diary, 27 October 1915-9 October 1917 / Eugene Sullivan - Page 135
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[Page 135]
cheerful blaze.
While marching across the moors near Chitterne, on our way to a sham fight, we passed the stone, a photo of which I am enclosing. The snap is a poor one as one of our chaps opened my camera by accident and let the light in onto the film. The stone is rather an interesting relic and was erected to indicate the spot at which a certain "noted Highway Robber of awful memory named Benjamin Golclough was shot dead whilst trying to escape from his pursuers" and it also records the fact that "his three companions in iniquity (names) were captured near here and sentenced to fifteen years hard labour at a court held at Devises &c." B. Golclough was buried without funeral honours at Chitterne". This relic must be of great antiquity but I don't remember seeing any date. The whole inscription is written in stilted old English. The soldier standing beside it is a patient whom I was piloting home at the time.
Well! great things have been doing in military circles around Larkhill to-day. His Most Gracious Majesty the King reviewed all the Australian troops in training here - that is the Third Division. This of course included myself among its atoms. It was a very impressive sight to see the whole division drawn up in full strength. In all forty thousand men or thereabouts marched past him. We were told that we were the largest body of Australian troops the King has ever reviewed and, of course, that we marched splendidly &c., I will post you one of the papers, if they give an account of it, in the morning.