Corporal Alexander Burton V.C. Print Page

The stained glass window commemorates Corporal Alexander Stewart Burton V.C. and his fellow servicemen who died in service or were killed in action in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 during World War One.

Alexander Burton was one of three Australian soldiers awarded the Victoria Cross for one particular action during the fighting at Lone Pine, although his was the only posthumous award. Born in Kyneton, Victoria, in 1893, Burton was working as an ironmonger when war broke out. He joined the Australian Imperial force (A.I.F.) and was posted to the 7th Battalion. Although he missed the landing on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, he watched it from the deck of a hospital ship, where he was being treated for a throat infection. A week later he was in the trenches, fighting with the 7th Battalion in a number of different areas. 

In the early hours of 9 August, at Lone Pine, the Turks launched a strong counter-attack on a newly captured trench held by Burton, Lieutenant Frederick Tubb, Corporal William Dunstan, and others. The Turks advanced up a sap and blew in the sandbag barricade but Burton, Tubb, and Dunstan rebuilt it. The enemy twice more destroyed the barricade but each time was driven off and the barricade rebuilt. Burton was killed by a bomb while he was building up the parapet. He has no known grave.

A memorial window to Corporal A. S. Burton, V.C., has been placed in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Euroa, and was unveiled by the Rev. John Garde, in the presence of a crowded congregation. Corporal Burton earned his V.C. in company with Major Tubb, V.C. (also of this district), and Lieutenant Dunstan, V.C., while defending a sap, and renewing barricades at Lone Pine, in the face of successive attacks by the Turks. Corporal Burton was killed by a bomb after a long defence of the position.
Benalla Standard (Vic), 1 April 1924.

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