JOHN CONSTANCE

Private John Constance was the last of the Belfast men to die at Gallipoli. His family, originally from Greece, had farmed at Southbridge. John had been born there on 1 May 1894. Prior to enlistment, John Constance worked as a butcher's assistant at the Belfast Freezing Works. He enlisted in August 1914 and sailed with the rest of the Canterbury Regiment in the Main Body on 16 October 1914. Before active service in Gallipoli he had been fined 9 shillings for losing a waterproof sheet and holdall in Zeitoun in Egypt. He landed with his battalion at Anzac Cove and apart from a brief report to a field ambulance in June for an unspecified illness, he seems to have survived the many struggles between the Anzacs and the Turks until he was wounded in the chest in the contest for Hill 60 in late August 1915. He was evacuated from the Gallipoli peninsula and died in Alexandria Hospital in Egypt on 2 September 1915, aged 21. He is buried in the military cemetery in Alexandria Egypt, and in addition to being commemorated on the Belfast war memorial his name appears on the Leeston war memorial, near his home town of Southbridge.

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