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[Page 7]
Like many of his brother officers in the Permanent Military Forces Tristram James began his Army career as a Militia officer, in January 1904, when he was employed as a Clerk in the Union Bank of Australia Limited in the gold-mining town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, he was commissioned in the Goldfields Infantry Regiment and posted to one of its companies in that town.
{n Febrauary 1906, after having passed a prescribed written examination, presumably at Swan Barracks, Perth, he was transferred from the Citizen Military Forces to the Permanent Military Forces and appointed a lieutenant in the RAG.A. His first posting in the R.A.G.A. was in N.S.W. Later he became A.D.C to the Commandant of the N.S.W. Military District, Brigadier-General J.M. Gordon, whose headquarters was located at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, N.S.W. Then on I August 1909 Tristram James was transferred to the R.A.G.A Queensland where he was posted to regimental duties. At the time Lieutenant J.D. Lavarack, R.A.G.A, a future Commandant of the R.M.C., Duntroon and a future Chief of the Australian General Staff, was also serving in the R.A.G.A, Queesnsland
When the War of 1914-18 began in August 1914 Tristram James had been the original Adjutant of the R.M.C., Duntroon since February 1911; he had been a captain in the R.A.G.A. since May 1911; and he had already served under the College's first two Commandants, Gerneral Bridges and General Parnell. But Tristram James was withheld from the rush to join the A.I.F. in 1914. It was decreed by higher authority tht he was to remain at his post at Duntroon for the immediate future where it was considered his duties were more important to Australia's military forces as a whole. This immediate future turned out to be of almost two years in duration.