John ‘Jack’ Messenger (SN 7291) from Humffray Street South was the first Ballarat serviceman to lose his life in World War 1. Born in Ballarat in 1887 and educated at Golden Point State School, he joined the Royal Australian Navy in December 1912, signing on for five years as an engine room artificer. Australia’s first action of the war saw him aboard submarine HMAS AE1, accompanying the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to New Guinea to neutralise a German colony and wireless base. On September 14th 1914, the AE1, along with its crew of 35 men, disappeared without a trace in the Bismark Archipelago off the New Guinea coast. His watery grave went undiscovered until December 2017. His sacrifice is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval War Memorial.