CHAPTER 15 | 1914–1918 – World War 1
Lieutenant-Colonel Carew Reynell, Commanding Officer of the 9th Light Horse Regiment, picking lice out of his uniform near Hill 60, Gallipoli. 27 August, 1915. He was killed only hours after this photograph was taken. [AWM H02784]
The dreams of many young men, otherwise destined to make their lives in wine, were shattered at Gallipoli and on the battlefields of Europe. When World War I intervened, the Reynell family’s fortunes in wine began to fade. Although the family shareholding diminished, it would take another 50 years before the winery and vineyards were completely taken over by corporate owners. In the meantime, the family stoically soldiered on. Walter Reynell continued his duties and responsibilities to the community. Pruning matches, fetes, and fundraising activities continued, despite the family loss. At a complimentary dinner to Mr Walter Reynell at McLaren Vale in May 1916, his hosts thanked him for coming to the assistance of the growers by purchasing their grapes. In response, Walter Reynell said that he had just acquired land in McLaren Vale with the intent to plant a vineyard. He believed that, after the war, preferential trade with Great Britain and her dominions would greatly improve trade for Australian wine and brandy. Many of the large wineries of the day would soon look like ‘pigmies’. This sentiment was also echoed in a West Australian letter to the editor by Charles Fergusson of Houghton Vineyard in the Swan Valley, Western Australia, who wrote that he believed the export markets to Java, Singapore, India, and England would be significant: ‘I also believe the demands for wines will be equally great’. On the 6th of April 1916, it was reported in The Register that Walter Reynell’s employees ‘presented between 4 and 5 tons of grapes to the Soldiers Hospital at Keswick, other auxiliary hospitals and different Government institutions’. Carew Reynell’s wife, May, was the daughter of Douglas John Byard, the headmaster of Hahndorf College. She married Carew Reynell on the 11th of May 1910, and soon after, they had two children, Lydia and Richard. After the outbreak
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