Don Roulston Buzzard

5.0
John Corrie Dymock

John Corrie Dymock was born on 6th March 1891 at Jamberoo. The first report we have of John Corrie, after his birth, was that he had been studying to become an engineer at a Sydney institution. His grades were very good and at the age of seventeen he finished “Top of the Class” in an examination held in 1908.

Top of the Class

His first job was with the Government of N.S.W.’s Sutherland Dry Docks Project, in Sydney Harbour. The project was to increase the size of the Sutherland Graving Dock to accommodate the new flagship of the Royal Australian Navy, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia. Routine use of dry docks was for the “graving” i.e. the cleaning, removal of barnacles and rust, and re-painting of ships’ hulls.

Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour [39]

In his final year of Engineering exams of 1909, he received a First Prize in the Engineering Course. He soon was moved to the draughting department and his shop-mates bought him a smoking outfit to mark the occasion. [40]

First Prize for Engineering Course 1909

In April of 1910, he had a holiday in Lismore with his parents.

Holiday visit to Lismore

John was next found in 1913, residing at Howell St, Cootamundra, N.S.W. and was working as a porter - (it is assumed for the railways). How he came to be in Cootamundra and working for the railways is unknown.

A few years passed and on 4th August 1914 the First World War [Appendix 1] broke out in Europe, and, as a U.K. colony, Australia was also at war.

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[39] Naval Historical Society of Australia
[40] When the Crimean War of the 1850s popularised Turkish tobacco in Britain, smoking gained in popularity. After dinner, a gentleman might wear a smoking jacket and retreat to a smoking room. The jacket was intended to absorb the smoke from his cigar or pipe and protect his clothing from falling ash.