For the Empire : a wounded Anzac

A portrait in oils of Ralph Elesmere Claridge by George J Coates

Ralph Claridge was born at Auburn and moved with his family to Adelaide where he attended Marryatville Public School, Prince Alfred College and the South Australian School of Mines. He enlisted in the 10th Battalion AIF in August 1914 aged 22.
Wounded in action at Gallipoli in May 1915 he was evacuated to Cairo but rejoined his battalion in July and was made Lance-Corporal in September.
Promoted to Corporal in January 1916, he transferred to the 50th Battalion in February, and in March was promoted to Sergeant. Claridge arrived in France June 1916. Wounded at Pozières in August, he was transferred to England to recuperate.
Transferred to the 70th Battalion in March 1917 and promoted to 2nd Lieutenant, he was transferred back to the 50th Battalion in September. In France in early 1918 Ralph Claridge was promoted to Lieutenant.

Lieutenant Ralph Elesmere Claridge was killed in action by machine gun fire at Villers-Bretonneux, 25 April 1918.

The artist, George Coates, was born in Melbourne in 1869. Known as an outstanding portrait artist, he exhibited in Paris and at the Royal Academy in London. Coates enlisted in the Territorial Royal Army Medical Corps in 1915. He died in London in 1930. Though never an official war artist, George Coates produced many portrait commissions for the Australian War Memorial. The portrait of was painted by Coates when Ralph Claridge was recuperating at Wandsworth Hospital in London after the Battle of Pozières.

The painting was bought from the artist by Ralph Claridge's fiancée, Miss Hilda Giles of Unley. She lent it to the Art Gallery of South Australia, and then to the Memorial Hospital in North Adelaide until 1967. The painting was given to the State Library in 1986, and hung in the Mortlock Building for some years.

Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the State Library under these conditions of use.

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