PRIVATE Cecil Reginald John Lidster, a young local farmer killed at Gallipoli, will be remembered at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra next week.
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Private Lidster, 21, landed at Gallipoli on May 12, 1915, attached to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.
But eight days later on May 20 he was shot by a sniper while going to get water for a mate.
He’s buried in Shrapnel Valley Cemetery at Gallipoli in Turkey.
His name will be projected on the outside wall of the Hall of Memory at the War Memorial on Wednesday, June 29 at 6.06pm.
Although most people don’t know a lot about him, they certainly see his name every time they’re driving on the Cargo Road a few kilometres out of Orange.
The locality of Lidster and the Lidster Hill were named after him 100 years ago.
The then-called German’s Hill farming community petitioned for a name change for its school and post office because of anger towards the name ‘German’ after the outbreak of World War 1.
The change was supported by Canobolas Shire Council and Cave Creek Farmers and Settlers' Association, and Orange MP John Fitzpatrick announced in January, 1916 the Department of Lands had given its approval.
But there was a new twist to come in the locality’s name.
When a new Cargo Road post office was built the name ‘Nashdale’ was chosen after the district postal inspector James Nash because of the assistance he had given to the community over a number of years.
There was opposition to this because locals said Lidster was “a memorial to one of the community’s sacred dead and to change it for the name of a public official, however respected, was an act of sacrilege ...”
But a public meeting attended by an estimated 40 people eventually agreed to the name ‘Nashdale’ for the post office.
The education department followed suit and the school also became ‘Nashdale’ in 1927.
German families like the Bohringers, Schmichs and Gersbachs were successful wine growing pioneers and farmers in the German’s Hill community and were well liked.
Wine grower Bohringer won prizes for his reisling in 1877 and his stocks of hermitage, burgundy, verdelho and muscatel were of excellent quality along with wines grown by Caspar Schmich.
The German heritage of the locality is almost forgotten although there’s still local families who would be aware of the German presence in their history.
So the German pioneers of the locality should be remembered in some way, even if German Hill is used as the name for a wine.
