The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge. Beneath the main figures, the British lion defeats the German eagle. The initials 'ECP', for the designer Edward Carter Preston, appear above the lion's right forepaw. A raised rectangle above the lion's head bears the name 'LESLIE COFFEY'. No checker's mark or foundry markings are visible.
Born in Chewton, Victoria, Leslie Coffey was employed as a machinery assembler in Perth, Western Australia, when he enlisted in the AIF on 17 March 1916. After initial training he was posted a private, service number 5690, to the 18th Reinforcements for 16th Battalion. He sailed from Fremantle on 18 July, aboard HMAT A48 Seang Bee.
Coffey arrived at Plymouth, England on 9 September and was posted to the 4th Training Battalion at Codford. He joined A Company of his battalion at Cardonette in France on 22 December. Very early on the morning of 11 April 1917, as the battalion prepared to move into line to attack Bullecourt and Queant on the Hindenburg Line, Coffey and two companions were sleeping in a dug-out in the railway cutting as Noreuil, when a shell burst buried all three men. They were dug out as soon as possible but all three had suffocated. Coffey was 24 years old. The men were not formally buried as the battalion went into the front line at 3am, and their bodies were not recovered after the war. All thee are commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial.
This commemorative plaque was sent to Coffey's widowed mother, Kate Coffey, in April 1923.
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge.
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge.
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge.
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge.
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge.
Bronze next of kin plaque, showing on the obverse, Britannia holding a laurel wreath, the British lion, dolphins, a spray of oak leaves and the words 'HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR' around the edge.
