A REMARKABLE story has remained buried in an unmarked grave at Ararat Cemetery for the last 76 years, until it was brought to light this week.
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Sidney Harry Jeffryes should have been celebrated throughout his life for his role in the famous Australasian Antarctic expedition of 1911-14 led by Dr Douglas Mawson.
Instead he spent the remainder of his life at Aradale mental asylum, without visitors or contact from his expedition mates, until his death on October 15 1942.
He was buried the next day and his plot was marked only by his patient number 3897.
On Tuesday, 76 years later, a plaque detailing Jeffryes’ life and death was unveiled at his burial site and his contribution to history was finally acknowledged.
Mawson’s Hut Foundation chairman David Jensen AM detailed the vital role Jeffryes played in the expedition.
“He was the relief wireless operator in the second year and he was brilliant at what he did,” he said.
“He was successful in getting wireless communication between Cape Denison at the main hut and Macquarie Island, which was the relay station.”
However, during the expedition Jeffryes’ mental health began to suffer, leading to delusions and conflict with the other expedition members.
He sent wireless message to Mawson’s team on Macquarie Island which claimed his six companions were trying to murder him, and he was the only sane person left in the party. He was subsequently stood down from active duties.
Upon returning to Australia he began to travel from Adelaide to his Queensland home but disembarked near Stawell and wandered the bush naked for 12 days before police picked him up.
They transported him to Aradale suffering what was believed to be schizophrenia.
Attitudes of the day toward mental illness, coupled with the global focus on the war, meant that Jeffryes suffered in isolation and in conditions Mr Jensen described as “horrific.”
“It makes the Tower of London look luxurious,” he said.
Jeffryes’ letters to his former expedition members went unanswered and it’s believed that he didn’t receive a single visitor in his 28 years there.
University of Tasmania associate professor of English Elizabeth Leane works in the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, and has done extensive research on the expedition and on heroic men who fit the traditional image of a hero.
“Jeffryes is the most outstanding example of someone who didn’t fit the mold,” she said.
“His story is completely compelling. Mental illness was stigmatised at the time, particularly so in men, and I think in a man who was supposed to be that heroic type coming back from the Antarctic, it really didn’t fit that image so for the expedition it was a bit of a public relations nightmare.
“They tried their best to keep the story fairly quiet. There was also a war on so you can understand it wasn’t the first thing on their mind to come and visit him.
“But I do feel it’s a story that was quashed at the time and now it’s coming to light. I think as a nation we can stop being embarrassed about this story and start to acknowledge it.
“It was the first time someone made wireless contact to and from and that’s a world achievement, yet it’s just fallen into the black hole of history due to his subsequent mental illness.”
The man responsible for pulling Jeffryes’ story out of that black hole was former Aradale employee Terry Schulz, who came across Jeffryes’ records and did some digging.
“I questioned the date of the hospitalization of the person,” Mr Schulz said.
“It said he died in 1973 and I said I’d worked at Aradale and J-Ward and I didn’t know the man. I did some research and we have a plaque today.”
Mr Jensen said the laying of the plaque was righting a wrong.
“Since 1942 Sidney Jeffryes has been laid to rest in an unmarked grave, which the Mawson’s Hut Foundation thought was totally unfair,” he said.
“He should have been recognised along with all the other members of the expedition of 1911-14.
“Jeffryes unfortunately remained in the hospital and without contact from any other member of the expedition. They didn’t visit him, they didn’t respond to correspondence, Mawson didn’t respond to letters from him, which is very sad.”
The plaque was funded by the Mawson’s Hut Foundation, which is a not for profit organisation, and its members have started a Go Fund Me campaign to cover the costs.