1st Australian Horse, Trooper No. 804
5Th Battalion Australian Commonwealth Horse Corporal No.387
Thomas Edward Overend was born 22 March 1879 at Cootamundra, the son of William and Mary Overend who had 12 children.
Before enlistment for the Boer War in the 1ST Australian Horse, he had worked as a labourer and a miner.
On 29 December 1900 The Queabeyan Age published the following extract from Thomas ‘letter to his sister, from Pretoria dated 8 November:
“I received your letter at Heidelburg, but we are now stationed, in Pretoria doing garrison duty. We had a very severe march from Barbeton, Cariolina, Omelong, Bethel and Heidelburg and from the latter place to Pretoria. It was a march I thought I would never get through as the Boers were fighting us every day. They would attack us each day starting at 3 o’clock in the morning. I had bullets at me in every direction, how we did not get hit it is a mystery-257 of them came down a hill at us; we waited for them in some kaffirs huts. We had one pom pom gun with us. Our artillery put 23 shells into them and you never saw such a scatter. We captured several of them and they said that they had no tucker and were after our convoy but they did not get it. We would have been wound up if they had got our biscuits. They would knock off about 3 o clock and attack next morning.
They kept this up for over a week, but they soon got tired of it. Jack Haydon and the first contingent have gone home, so I don’t think we will be long now. Poor young Taylor has gone into the hospital again. He is always taking ill - he neglects himself.
I don’t think we will be home for Xmas, as things don’t look too right. Pretoria is a very nice place but with too many troops here it is unhealthy. Joe Winter is still with us here, he is alright. There are 3 or 4 hundred Boer prisoners near our camp. I had a slight touch of fever at Barbeton, but I pulled through. A man don’t know the minute he will get it. We are all tired of this life now as it is to miserable with one course of tucker every day, you get that way that you have to shut your eyes to get it down. We have to break the biscuits with a mallet, our teeth are worn out front biting at them. Remember me to all.”
Having arrived back in Sydney on the Taugarino, he reached Bungendore on 8 May 1901 in time to receive his Queen’s Medal with four clasps from the Duke of York at Government House, Sydney on 1 June 1901.
He was then discharged and as reported in The Queanbeyan Observer about June 1901, he returned to South Africa to join the Cape Police. His stay in South Africa must have been short, as he reenlisted with the 5th Australian Commonwealth Horse on 21 April 1902 as a Corporal No. 387, aged twenty-four.
The 1906 and 1908 Electoral Rolls showed him again working as a labourer. He later married Ada, Winifred Davis at Hay in 1908 and they had four children. He enlisted for World War I as a Private 2456 with the 56th Battalion on 25 March 1916. At the time of his enlistment, he was thirty-nine, working as a miner, and he and Ada were living in Goldsmith Street, Goulburn. He left Sydney on the A60 Aeneas on 30 September 1916 and returned to Australia on 25 October 1917 with a heart condition. He was finally discharged as medically unfit on 23 November 1917.His service is recorded on the Bungendore Great War Roll of Honour.
He died in 1961.
See also: BUNGENDORE & DISTRICT WAR MEMORIAL SOUTH AFRICAN (BOER) WAR 1899-1902 ROLL OF HONOUR ISBN: 978-0-646-55612-3 Peter John Hugonnet 2011