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Military Representative attached to the Australian troops in Egypt from March to December 1916. He was
commended for his enthusiasm and initiative, and was described as a ‘high souled Patriot’.
He returned to Australia and enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 30 April 1917, and served as a
signaller with the 2nd Battery, 1st Australian Field Artillery Brigade. He was awarded the Military Medal (MM)
for exemplary and courageous behaviour when he kept up communications after laying a ground line after heavy
shellfire on 29 September 1918, in the vicinity of St Quentin Canal. He was wounded and gassed at Etricourt on
3 October 1918, and carried the scars for the rest of his life.
Following the War he remained in England (where he sometimes stayed with his Uncle Oscar) and completed
a Bachelor of Arts degree in Jurisprudence at Magdalen College, Oxford, with Distinction in Shortened Honours.
He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in April 1920. He was discharged from the AIF on 27 May 1920
with the rank of Lance-Bombardier, and returned to Australia on 26 March 1921. In the intervening period he gave
up his intention of completing a postgraduate degree and instead travelled with the Red Cross to assist during
the famines in Poland and Russia. Upon his return to Melbourne he completed his studies at the University of
Melbourne and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1922. He was then admitted to the Victorian Bar.
From 1921, he was a Legal Assistant in the Secretary’s Office of the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s
Department, at first in Melbourne and then in Canberra. On 24 February 1925, he married Beryl Zichy-Woinarski,
and their first child, Keith John Austin, was born in Melbourne in November 1925. (He was named by Eric after
the English jurist John Austin (1790–1859), the first Professor of Jurisprudence in England). In 1926, Eric was
appointed Legal Assistant in the Crown Law Office, Department of the Government Secretary for the Territory
of New Guinea. They departed from Sydney on 25 August, and the family spent a year in Rabaul. Eric then
successfully applied for a job in Darwin, and the family sailed on the SS Marella, arriving on 18 February 1928.
They lived in the old home built by J G Knight overlooking the port, and which was known either as ‘Knight’s
Folly’ or ‘the Mud Hut’. The house burnt down on the night of 31 December 1933, while the family was on holiday
in Melbourne, and on their return to Darwin they moved to the newer government housing on Myilly Point, which
was devastated by the 1937 cyclone.
Eric Asche was admitted to practice in North Australia in March 1928, and was appointed Crown Law Officer
of North Australia by the Commonwealth Attorney-General on 11 June 1928. At this time, the federal government
had divided the Territory at the 20th parallel into North and Central Australia, each with separate administrations.
He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Central Australia on 31 May 1929. However, the Supreme
Court did not sit in Alice Springs until 1935, by which time North and Central Australia had been reunited
(in 1931), and Eric Asche had been appointed as Crown Law Officer for ‘Our Northern Territory of Australia’.
He was Crown Prosecutor at the first Supreme Court sittings in Alice Springs on 6 February 1935, and travelled
there with Judge Wells and J W Nichols by train and then by De Havilland Dragon.
On 29 April 1930 Eric Asche was with Government Resident for North Australia, Robert Weddell, together
with the Chief Medical Officer, Dr C E Cook, when Weddell met with a deputation of unemployed men, who were
joined by other protesters who forced their way into Weddell’s office, bolting and locking the doors behind them.
Two of the protesters left and the other nine were forcibly evicted by Police Inspector Stretton and five constables:
all 11 were charged with unlawfully imprisoning the Government Resident in his office and a further fourteen
were charged with trespass. In 1937, after the arrival of Administrator, C L A Abbott, an office for the Crown
Law Officer and the Administrator were built adjacent to each other in the grounds of Government House next to
the garage.
Due to his ill health Eric Asche and his family returned to Melbourne in 1938 where he died on
26 March 1940.
L Blake, Tales from Old Geelong, 1979; Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 10 October 1919; family information; First AFA Brigade Routine
Order No 94, 6 November 1918; Liber Melburniensis, Centenary Edition, Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, 1965; London
Gazette, 4th Supplement, 17 June 1919; North Australia Government Gazette, 11 June 1928; Northern Standard (various).
PAUL ROSENZWEIG and BARBARA JAMES, Vol 3.
ASHBURNER, IDA (1900–1961), (later EDWARDS, IDA), nurse, was born on 7 February 1901, the daughter
of the Reverend Thomas Ashburner, a theology graduate from Cambridge University. He came to Australia as
a priest with the Church of England in Queensland and married Mary Ann Lydia Watson. Reverend Ashburner
served with the church in several country areas and his first child, Ida, was born at Childers. She was the eldest of
four children.
As recalled by her brother Guy, life was hard for the children as their parents were poor. Their mother died
when Ida was ten years old and from then on things were difficult under the care of indifferent housekeepers.
Ida attended primary school at East Drayton, Warwick, and completed her schooling at St Catherine’s,
Stanthorpe. She then trained in general nursing and midwifery at Brisbane General Hospital.
She joined the Northern Territory Medical Service on 28 June 1928 and set sail in the Malabar for Darwin
on 4 July that year. There had been some turmoil among the staff in Darwin Hospital and this led to resignations.
Ida Ashburner was appointed as matron on 6 February 1929 and her pleasant but firm personality helped restore
stability and provide direction. Legislation providing for a Nurses Registration Board was passed in 1928.
Matron Ashburner was one of the members of that board.
A training school for nurses was begun in 1929. It was a four-year course based on the curriculum used
by Brisbane General Hospital. The Nurses Registration Board in Queensland agreed to conduct examinations
and provide registration. The first local nurse completed training in 1933 and the number of students in training
increased to twelve on the eve of the Second World War.