Sailor, Soldier, Vicar, Farmer

The Improbable Life of Anzac Chaplain Walter Dexter

By Dr Daniel Reynaud

Published by Signs Publishing

RRP $34.99 in paperback | ISBN 9781923352285

Walter Dexter was born in the small northern English village of Tranmere in 1873. He was a feisty young boy, physically suited to the rough and tumble life that was to be his early life yet from those unlikely beginnings, he was to become the most distinguished and highly decorated Australian military chaplain of all time.

His story reads like a boy’s own adventure epic.

His early career saw him head to sea, indentured as an apprentice on a merchant ship. The Boer War intervened.

He responded to the patriotic call for recruits, joining the all-volunteer Lumsden’s Horse. On its disbandment, he returned to the sea for several years before quitting to become a mere clergyman.

It was in this role that he appears at Gallipoli.

He was among the original twelve chaplains appointed to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), spending six years as an army chaplain, having earlier volunteered for overseas missionary work with the church.

Daniel Reynaud has meticulously reconstructed Dexter’s life story from its unpromising beginnings to his post-war life quietly serving the community.

There’s no doubt his story deserves to be acknowledged in Australia’s Anzac memory.