A ray of sunlight and some sleuthing has helped a librarian identify a World War I soldier whose photo was handed in to the State Library of Victoria.
The chance sighting of handwriting on the back of the photo led to the discovery that he was Melburnian Harold Ross Clark who was killed in Belgium in 1917.
By further detective work, librarian Ann Copeland tracked down one of Clark’s descendants.
Copeland gave the framed portrait to Clark’s granddaughter Dinah Stehr, of Newcastle, in New South Wales, who visited the library last week.
Stehr said she had never seen the portrait, which was handed in by an unknown person to a security guard at the library last month with an unsigned Post-it note attached.
The note said: “Can you please return this to the family?”
The only words on the photo were, “Yours sincerely Hal 30/7/16”, and the name of a Melbourne photographic studio.
Copeland, a family history librarian, who was given the photo, held little hope of identifying “Hal”.
But one day, as a colleague held up the photo, Copeland noticed something on the cardboard backing.
“As the sun shone on it, I could make out some faint text saying, ‘Killed in Action 16/9/17’,” she said.
Another librarian, David Flegg, told her the soldier’s uniform indicated he was a lieutenant.
By searching for soldiers who had died on the date, with a first name beginning with H, Copeland singled out Harold Ross Clark.
According to the National Archives of Australia, Clark was buried at The Huts Cemetery at Dikkebus, south-west of Ypres, in Belgium.
The Battle of Passchendaele raged between German and Allied troops in the area from July to November, 1917.
The National Archives record said Clark, who was in a party carrying trench mortar shells, died instantly after coming under heavy artillery attack.
Clark, of Elsternwick, was 25, and married to Doris Clark.
Newspaper archives revealed Harold had two young sons.
His brother, Jack, was also killed in action, at Pozieres, France, in 1916. Their brother-in-law, Lieutenant H. V. Fraser, also died in World War I.
While searching for Clark’s descendants, Copeland was distressed to find that Clark’s son, Harold Douglas Clark, had been killed in Lebanon during World War II, aged 23.
Copeland found the death notice of Clark’s other son, Laurance, which named his children and grandchildren.
Through the internet, Copeland tracked down Dinah Stehr, Laurance’s daughter and Clark’s granddaughter.
Stehr said she was “amazed and gobsmacked” to hear from Copeland.
“It’s wonderful to have it because I don’t think any of us in the family has got that photo,” Stehr said.
Stehr said she was “terribly impressed” with Copeland’s research skills.
She would like to speak to whomever dropped the photo in at the library and thank them, too.
Copeland said: “It’s an absolute delight to have found a home for Hal.
“We thought he’d end up in the library collection as an anonymous WWI digger, but to find his history and find out about his family was so important. It was really great.”
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