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Cheer Up Hut Honour RollPrint Page Print this page

07-March-2021
07-March-2021

Photographs supplied by Stephen Warren

The ornately carved Australian Blackwood honour roll commemorates the 500 women workers who served at the Cheer Up Hut during World War One. The Cheer Up Society Hut in Adelaide was one of many around the Adelaide suburbs and rural South Australia and an almost identical building was erected at Peterborough.

The Cheer Up Society was an organization hosted by women who provided a site where servicemen could take recreation leave, have meals and be entertained with dances, sing-a-longs and concerts.

The honour roll has two fluted columns edge the board, on top of the left column is a naval crown, on the top of the right column is the badge of the Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.)  Five panels of names in gold lettering, between the first and second and the fourth and fifth panels are effigies of gum tree trunks. Across the top of the names under the title is tree foliage of the Western Australian flowering red gum, the branches signifying the links of suburban and country branches of the society to the parent body.  In the centre of the foliage is an effigy of the membership medal with the title "Cheer Up Hut Society Adelaide".

On Friday 12 December 1919, a meeting was held at the Adelaide Cheer up Hut which did not mean the winding up of the society but indicated such an eventuality. The meeting stated that the soldiers were still returning and that the board of management had to stay in existence for a short time to properly close all the business of the society and dispose of the property. There was also the important question of the disposal of the Cheer-up Hut, and of the sacred memorial portraits and tablets of the heroic dead. There was in course of preparation a large honour roll, designed by Miss Blanche Francis, in Australian blackwood , on which the names of all the women workers connected with the Cheer-up Hut would be inscribed. The board would remain permanently in the hut with other treasures. A capital history of the Cheer-up movement was being compiled by Mr. F. J. Mills for the society. It would be properly illustrated and published in book form.
Excerpt from Cheer-up "Au Revoir" article, The Register (Adelaide), 13th December 1919.

General Sir William Birdwood, who will be entertained at a luncheon at the Cheer-Up Hut on Saturday, March 6, will have a guard of honour composed entirely of ladies of the Cheer-Up Society to welcome him. The famous general will unveil the honour roll of Cheer Up workers containing no fewer than 501 names. This has been presented to the hut by the President (Sir William Sowden)  and the board. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Adelaide have issued invitations to a large number of citizens to be present at the garden party in honour of General Sir William Birdwood to be held in Victoria Park on the afternoon of March 12.
The Register (Adelaide) , 27th February 1920.

 

Location

Address:ANZAC Highway, Army Museum of South Australia, Keswick Barracks, Keswick, 5035
State:SA
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -34.944117
Long: 138.581458
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Honour Roll
Monument Theme:Conflict
Sub-Theme:WW1
Actual Event Start Date:04-August-1914
Actual Event End Date:28-June-1919
Designer:Miss Blanche Francis
Link:http://www.vwma.org.au/

Dedication

Actual Monument Dedication Date:Saturday 6th March, 1920
Front Inscription

1914  Cheer-Up Hut Women Workers  1920

[ Names ]

"We worked in love and pride for those great hearts who offered all."

Source: MA,RVWM
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au