James Henry Peasnell (SN 494) was born in Ballarat and educated at Queen Street State School but enlisted at Pontville, Tasmania, as a 30 year old in September 1914. Something of a hero in civilian life, he was awarded the Albert Silver Medal in 1912 for his bravery in trying to rescue fellow miners at the Mt. Lyell Mine disaster in Tasmania. Single, and a miner by trade, he joined the 12th Battalion and embarked from Hobart aboard the Geelong barely a month after his enlistment. In Gallipoli, in August 1915, he transferred to the 3rd Field Company Engineers as a sapper but seems to have spent a good portion of the next year and a half in hospital with various ailments. He arrived in France in March 1917 and was wounded in action in Belgium in October, suffering a penetrating gun shot wound to the chest. He died of his wounds the next day on October 17th 1917 and is buried in the Lijessenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium.