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Jubilees and Centenaries help to organise history into manageable periods for study purposes. The year 1989, for example marked the Centenary in Australia of the first major Inspection of its Local Military Forces. This Inspection was undertaken by Lieutenant-General Sir James Bevan Edwards (1834-1922) of the British Army. His Instructions were to advise the respective Governments of the Australian Colonies, on the basis of his inspections, how they could best, among themselves, standardise the organisation, administration, equipment and training of these forces so that they could co-operate more effectively in war or during threats of war. But on another and different level this year 1989 marked the 50th anniversary of the death of the subject of this biographical sketch, Lieutenant-Colonel Tristram Bernard Wordsworth James who was, at the time of General Edwards Inspection of Australia's military forces, six years of age.
To pause for a moment to reflect on the significance of a period of 50 years one must conclude that it represents more than half the lifetime of most individuals. To look at a span of 50 years from another angle it means that no serving officer in the Australian Army to-day was commissioned in the lifetime of Lieutenant-Colonel T.B.W. James. Moreover, he has not hitherto attracted the attention of either historians or biographers. Consequently, no published records, of sufficient length and substance exist on him to which one may refer to learn something of his professional life, his personality, and his private Interests. Therefore, this biographical sketch is tendered as a contribution to the expansion of the extant, but scant, published literature on Lieutenant-Colonel T.B.W. James.