Major General Sir John Gellibrand, (5 December 1872 – 3 June 1945) was a senior Australian Army officer in the First World War, Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police from 1920 to 1922, and a member of the Australian House of Representatives, representing the Tasmanian Division of Denison for the Nationalist Party from 1925 to 1928.
The scion of a prominent Tasmanian family, Gellibrand graduated top of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the South Lancashire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's Volunteers) in October 1893. He served in the South African War, participating in the Relief of Ladysmith. In May 1900 he was promoted to captain in the Manchester Regiment, and served on St Helena where its primary task was guarding Boer prisoners of war. He graduated from the Staff College, Camberley, in December 1907, and served on the staff of the garrison commander in Ceylon. Frustrated at the poor prospects for promotion, he resigned his British Army commission in April 1912 and returned to Tasmania to grow apples.
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Gellibrand offered his services, and was appointed to the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a captain on the staff of the 1st Division. He landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, and served in the Gallipoli Campaign until he was wounded on 11 May. He returned to Anzac on 31 May 1915, but put in for a transfer to the staff of the 2nd Division. In December, he was given command of the 12th Infantry Battalion, the 1st Division's Tasmanian battalion, then resting on Lemnos, but did not return to Anzac, which was evacuated in December. On 1 March 1916 he was promoted to brigadier general and given command of the 6th Infantry Brigade, which he led in the Battle of Pozières and Second Battle of Bullecourt. He was relieved of his command at his own request, and posted to the AIF Depots in the United Kingdom. He returned to the Western Front in November 1917 to command of the 12th Infantry Brigade, which he led in the Battle of Dernancourt in April 1918. He was promoted to major general on 1 June 1918, and commanded the 3rd Division in the Battle of Amiens and the Battle of the Hindenburg Line.
After the war, Gellibrand returned to Tasmania. In 1919 he accepted the post of Public Service Commissioner in Tasmania. He investigated the conditions of the service, and recommended reforms. He then took up a position as Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police in Victoria, but failed to get the Victorian government to agree with his recommendations for reform, and resigned in 1922. While in Melbourne, Gellibrand commanded the 3rd Division, but had to resign when he returned to Tasmania in 1922. He entered Federal politics in 1925, and was elected the member for Denison. He was defeated in the 1928 and 1929 elections, and returned to farming, first in Tasmania, and then in Victoria. In the late 1930s, he was consulted by Prime Ministers Joseph Lyons and Robert Menzies about defence matters. He campaigned for an increase in the size of the Australian Army, and, after the outbreak of the Second World War, lobbied the Menzies government to appoint Major General Sir Thomas Blamey as Commander in Chief of the Army. In June 1940, he was appointed commandant of the Victorian Volunteer Defence Corps, the Australian version of the British Home Guard, but ill-health forced him to resign.
Early life and military career John Gellibrand (known as Jack to his family) was born at Leintwarden, near Ouse in Tasmania, on 5 December 1872, the sixth child and third son of Thomas Lloyd Gellibrand, a grazier, landowner and local politician and his wife Isabella née Brown. Thomas Lloyd was the son of Joseph Gellibrand, a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly from 1856 to 1861, and a captain in a Militia unit, the 3rd Rifles (Southern Tasmanian Volunteers). Gellibrand had two older brothers, Tom and Walter; three sisters, Annie, Lina and Mary; and a younger brother, Blake. His father died on 9 November 1874, and on 7 February 1876, his mother took her seven children to live in England, sailing on the clipper Sobroan. En route she met the ship's surgeon, Dr Edward Clayton Ling, and they were married in Saxmundham, Suffolk, where his family lived, on 28 December 1878. They had two more children, a daughter, Muriel, and a son, Maurice, but Ling died on 28 June 1882.
Gellibrand was initially educated at Crespigny Preparatory School at Aldeburgh in Suffolk. In 1883 the family moved to Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, where he continued his education before completing it at the King's School, Canterbury in 1888 and 1889. After a visit to Tasmania with his mother and sister Annie in 1891, he returned to Frankfurt-am-Main in September 1891 to study for the entrance exam to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In Frankfurt he met and courted Elizabeth Helena Breul, known as Elsie to her family, who would later become his wife. He passed the entrance exam, topping the list of candidates, which was published on 17 August 1892, and entered on 1 September. He graduated at the top of his class of 87 on 18 October 1893, and was awarded the General Proficiency Sword for gaining the highest aggregate marks in the final exams. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the South Lancashire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's Volunteers) on 21 October 1893, and was posted to its 1st Battalion, then on garrison duty in Birr, County Offaly, in Ireland.
Gellibrand married Elsie in an Anglican ceremony at the parish church in Ilkley, Yorkshire, on 27 July 1894. He attended a course at the School of Musketry in February and March 1895, qualifying him as an instructor in small arms and the Maxim gun, and was promoted to lieutenant on 24 April 1895. He commanded C Company from October 1895 to October 1897. His salary was insufficient to live on, so Gellibrand and Elsie supplemented it by translating German works by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and others into English, for which they were paid 10 shillings per thousands words. In early 1894 he had taken advantage of his fluent German to qualify as a translator. Their first child, Elizabeth Joan, was born in London on 30 May 1899.
In August 1899, Gellibrand easily passed the examinations for promotion to captain, but was passed over for the post of adjutant of the 2nd Battalion of the South Lancashire Regiment, then based in St Helens, Merseyside. In October the post became vacant again, and this time he secured it. The South African War had broken out, and the 2nd Battalion embarked for South Africa on 30 November, but Gellibrand was left behind, in charge of the regimental depot. He eventually received orders to embark for South Africa with reinforcements on 3 January 1900. He arrived in South Africa on 25 January 1900. Soon after, he was given command of D Company. As such he participated in the relief of Ladysmith, leading a bayonet charge on 27 February. His company entered the town on 3 March. Five days later he became ill with typhoid, and lay in a comatose state until 3 April. He was joined in Durban by Elsie, who had made her way out to South Africa with Cecil Rhodes, and they embarked for England together on 26 May, arriving at Southampton on 18 June.
On 26 May 1900, Gellibrand was promoted to captain in the newly raised 3rd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment, joining his new command at Aldershot on 29 November 1900, where his second daughter, Cynthia Lloyd was born on 22 June 1901. On 28 July 1902, the battalion moved to St Helena where its primary task was guarding of the 6,000 Boer prisoners of war there. These were released when the war ended in May 1902, and most of the battalion moved to Middelburg, in South Africa. Gellibrand remained on St Helena, where he became a justice of the peace and garrison adjutant, until he too left for South Africa on 5 January 1904, becoming adjutant on 24 January. The announcement in July 1904 that the 3rd and 4th Battalions of the Manchester Regiment were to be disbanded ended any prospect of further promotion in the near future. In August 1905, Gellibrand passed the staff college entrance exam, and he embarked for England with his family on 28 December. He entered the Staff College, Camberley, in January 1906. He graduated on 2 December 1907. Staff college was normally followed by a staff posting, and in March 1908 he was informed by the commandant of the college, Brigadier General Henry Wilson, that his next posting would be to Ceylon, as Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General (DAA & QMG) on the staff of the garrison commander.
Gellibrand arrived in Colombo with his family on 22 May 1908. The family increased when their third child, Thomas Ianson, was born on 29 November 1908. He got along well with his first commander, Brigadier General R. C. B. Lawrence, but much less so with his successor, Brigadier General A. J. Whitacre Allen. As the seventh most senior captain in his regiment, he could expect that promotion to major in seven or eight years. Frustrated at this, he took leave in July 1910, and travelled to Tasmania to find out what the prospects were there. On 27 April 1912, his four-year posting to Ceylon ended. He resigned his commission, and returned to Tasmania with his family, reaching Hobart on 14 June 1912. He hoped to be able to take over one of his family's properties, but none were willing to sell out to him, so he bought an apple orchard at Risdon, and settled into life as a farmer. Charles Bean later wrote:
First World War When the First World War broke out on 4 August 1914, Gellibrand offered his services to the commandant of the 6th Military District (Tasmania). On 20 August 1914, he was appointed to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a captain, and given the post of Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General (DAQMG) on the staff of the 1st Division. Staff college graduates like Gellibrand were scarce in Australia; only six Australian Army officers had graduated from staff colleges. There were also four of the British Army's graduates on secondment. For the 1st Division's General Staff (G) Branch, the division commander, Major General William Bridges, chose two of Gellibrand's Camberley classmates, Lieutenant Colonel Brudenell White from the Australian Army, and Major Duncan Glasfurd from the British Army, and Captain Thomas Blamey, an Australian Army officer who had graduated from the Staff College, Quetta. The Administration (A) Branch was headed by the AA & QMG, Colonel Victor Sellheim. Lieutenant Colonel W. G. Patterson was his deputy, the DAA & QMG. As DAQMG, Gellibrand was responsible for logistics; Major Cecil Foott, an Australian 1913 Camberley graduate, was the Deputy Assistant Adjutant General (DAAG), responsible for personnel matters. On 23 September 1914 Gellibrand was promoted to major, the usual rank for his post.
The 1st Division headquarters left Port Melbourne on the Orient liner SS Orvieto on 21 October 1914, which reached Alexandria on 3 December. Sellheim left to command the new Intermediate Base Depot on 12 January 1915. Patterson stepped up to become AA & QMG, and Gellibrand to become DAA & QMG. Foott took Gellibrand's place as DAQMG, and Captain Thomas Griffiths became DAAG. Gellibrand landed at Anzac Cove with the second echelon of 1st Division Headquarters at around 09:00 on 25 April 1915. As DAA & QMG, he was responsible for supply. He helped organise the beach parties, rounded up stragglers, and organised the movement of supplies and ammunition forward. Patterson had a nervous breakdown and was evacuated on 28 April 1915, Gellibrand performed his job as well until Lieutenant Colonel John Forsyth was appointed AA & QMG on 7 May 1915.