ALBERT PATTRICK

Albert Edward Pattrick worked in his father's "Seven Oaks" butcher's shop on the corner of Papanui Road and Horner Street, where Main North Road begins. He had been born in 1883 and educated at Belfast School. Thirty-one year old Pattrick was married and had a young daughter Eunice, but in 1913, his wife was committed to Sunnyside Hospital suffering from “mental derangement”. Despite (or because of?) his domestic difficulties he enlisted in the Canterbury Regiment on 6 January 1915. On 17 April 1915, he left New Zealand and was sent to Gallipoli as a reinforcement where he was killed in action on 21 June 1915 at the notorious Quinn's Post. Percy Williams describes the circumstances of his death:

"On the 21st whilst I was in No 1 (Quinn's) Post, word came along that Private A.E. Pattrick had been got by a machine gun. I immediately hurried down to the dressing station but found that death had been instantaneous. ‘Pat' was a great favourite, and his death regretted by all, but especially by members of the Fourth Reinforcements.”

He is buried in the Shrapnel Valley Cemetery on Gallipoli and is commemorated on both the Papanui and Belfast War Memorials.

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