Arthur McKenzie

William Arthur McKenzie was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League. He later moved to South Africa, and was killed during World War I.

Family

The son of William Kenneth McKenzie, and Elizabeth Ann McKenzie, née Stoker, William Arthur McKenzie was born at Sandhurst, Victoria on 25 December 1879.

Education

He attended Geelong Grammar School in 1898. Not only a fine schoolboy cricketer and footballer, he was an outstanding athlete.
At the 16 November 1898 Geelong Grammar School sports carnival he was the school's champion athlete, and was awarded the school's Championship Cup for his performance. He won the long jump by 14 inches, jumping 18ft. 11in., the 100 yards, the quarter mile, the mile, and came third in the pole vault.

Football

He played for Geelong in the VFL in the last four games of the 1898 football season.

Military service

Boer War

He served overseas in the 2nd Victorian Mounted Rifles in the Second Boer War (1899–1902).

World War I

Permanently residing in South Africa, he enlisted in the South African Military Forces, and served overseas in the 1st Regiment South African Infantry.

Death

He was killed in action at Delville Wood, in France, on 18 July 1916. He has no known grave, and is commemorated at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme near Thiepval, in northern France.