John Knox Presbyterian (later Uniting) Church Ivanhoe is now the gallery and art space for Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School, however the stained glass windows remain in place from its years as the local Presbyterian Churchto honour the memory of two local sons who died in Gallipoli and France. It is a pair with the window on the other side of the main entranceto make a full image of the Crown of Life - an Angel and the Knight in Armour.
The window commemorated two young men, Robert Thomas Scott and Walter Alan Leckie. Private Scott, eldest son of the late Robert and Margaret Scott, 'St. Heliers' Ivanhoe, was employed at the Newport railway workshops when he enlisted in August 1914. He left Melbourne on 19 October 1914 as a driller in 6 Battalion, travelling first to Egypt and then Gallipoli. Initially reported missing, then listed as wounded, Private Scott was killed in action during the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. Buried in a Turkish Cemetery at Pine Ridge he was later reinterred in the Lone Pine Cemetery.
Lieutenant Leckie, son of the Ivanhoe Stationmaster Walter Leckie, was a promising engineering student when he enlisted in September 1914 and became Corporal Leckie in 2 Field Company Engineers. After a short period of training his unit embarked from Melbourne on 21 October 1914. The following year he was commissioned in the 90 Field Company Royal Engineers and was wounded at La Basse in the battle at Armentieres. He was killed at Ypres, aged 23, on 21 February 1916 and buried at Tancrez Farm Cemetery, Belguim. Only a week after his family was notified of his death, his eldest brother Peter, who had travelled to England to joinWalter, received his commission as Lieutenant in the British Army.
References & Acknowledgements
AWM Roll of Honour and Commemorative Roll; NAA: B2455, Scott RT; Argus, 25 February 1916, p.6; 2 March 1916, p.8; Heidelberg News and Greensborough and Diamond Creek Chronicle, 26 June 1915, p.2; 26 February 1916, p.3; The AIF Project, UNSW@ADFA, 2008; The Newsletter, Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School.
