Sydney born Herbert Mavay must have attended Auburn Public School in the early 1890s for when he enlisted in Warwick, Queensland, on 21 September 1916 he declared his age as ‘34 years 9 months’. He also declared he had served 2 years’ apprenticeship in Sydney with Bennet & Moreton.
Mavay was a farmer in the Yangan district and a member of the Royal Pride of Yangan Lodge of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. Between enlistment and embarkation on the Demosthenes in December 1916, Private Mavay married Irene Jane (?) of Yangan, a small village out from Warwick.
Mavay arrived in Plymouth, United Kingdom, on 3 March 1917 and entered a Training Battalion at Durrington on the Salisbury Plain. Ten months after enlistment, Mavay crossed to France and on to Belgium and was taken on strength of the 41st Battalion on 13 July 1917. Three months later, he died of wounds in the Passchendaele offensive. Private Mavay was buried in the Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery near the Belgian town of Poperinge. For his gravestone his wife chose the inscription MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE.
Irene remarried but was still in Yangan in 1922 when she received the Memorial Plaque, the Memorial Scroll and the medals of her late husband.
Herbert Mavay is honoured on the following memorials in Australia:
- Auburn Boys Public School Great War Photographic Honour Roll
- Warwick War Memorial – Warwick, Queensland (pictured in images 1 and 2 below)
- Yangan and Swanfels Honour Roll (School of Arts, Yangan) - Queensland (pictured in image 3 below)
- Roll of Honour Australian War Memorial Canberra
