The foundation stone for Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Yarram, designed by George de Lacy Evans, was laid in 1918. The gift of a memorial window in honour of Cyril Johnson was accepted by the Board of Guardians in March the following year and the central light of the three-light east window dedicated on 5 November 1919. The windows on either side were not filled with figurative glass until Faith was commissioned in 1932 and the Ladies' Guild ordered the Ascension in 1964. The subject, Agony in the Garden, was taken from a popular print of a painting by Hoffman, and the head of the windowfilled with the crossed flags of Australia and Britain in the ornamental canopy at the top of the light.
Cyril Ben Hamlyn Johnson was the son of Yarram solicitor Ben Percival and his wife Emily Kate Johnson. He was a twenty year old student at the University of Melbourne when he enlisted in June 1916, having been a school cadet before serving two years in the Citizen Forces. Private Johnson embarked for overseas on HMAT Euripides in May 1916 with 6 Battalion, a unit that would see fighting in many of the major battles of the war. After some months at Perham Downs, England, he joined the battalion and in February 1917 was promoted to Acting Sergeant for a short period, one of several promotions during his time in the trenches. By late April he was in hospital, the first of several bouts of scabies contracted periodically up until January 1918. His chaplain reported that he was killed when 6 Battalion came under machine gun fire at Hazebroek. Private Johnson was buried at Outtersteene Communal Cemetery Extension, Bailleul, France.
References & Acknowledgements
AWM Roll of Honour; NAA: B2455, Johnson CBH; Gippsland Times, 10 March 1919, p.3; 10 November 1919, p.3.
