People - William Arthur Gullidge
Sergeant - A.I.F. 2/22 Battalion
Born: 9 April 1909 Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. Died: 1 July 1942.
Arthur Gullidge was bandmaster of the 2/22 Regimental Band.
Extract from One Bloke's Story by Rob Mitchell, page 22:-
Arthur, the son of a Broken Hill miner, became a Christian as a young boy and grew up with Jesus as his hero. He was an accomplished conductor and composer of band music who had his first work published at the age of 17. He had won two ABC national music competitions, two international competitions for composers of music for brass and was the publisher of The Regal Brass Band Journal, writing under two names, his own and the name Greendale. He was for a while bandmaster at Collingwood, one of Melbourne's largest Salvationist bands. His music has a certain "lift and drive" to it. Arthur felt that he should play a part in Australia's defence but decided that a noncombatant role, for a Christian, would be more appropriate. Arthur Gullidge and 25 other Salvationists from a number of citadels, ranging from Sydney to Hobart, marched en masse into the Royal Park Military Depot in Melbourne and enlisted as a group.
From page 27:
At age 32, Arthur Gullidge, the band leader, was commissioned by the Army to write a collection of band music for use on ceremonial occasions, comprising mainly short, classical pieces, hymn tunes, national songs and a set of standard bugle calls that would remain in constant use by the military, right on into the present. Mavis, Arthur's wife used to buy the latest sheet music of the time in Melbourne and send it to him where he would rearrange it as a band march. The 2/22nd were marching to "We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz", not long after the movie opened in Melbourne.
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