At 8.30pm on 29 October 1918 Stanley Michael Jordan died at the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Abbeville in France. The cause of death was listed as bronchopneumonia, as the result of exposure to the elements. Stanley was the last person from the Orange district to die during the First World War. The armistice was signed just thirteen days later.
Stanley was born in Paddington, Sydney, in about 1894. He grew up in Orange, living with his mother in Lords Place and attending Patrician Brothers’ School. Following his education Stan (as he had become known) trained as a hairdresser. He later moved to Sydney to further his business.
In 1916 Stan returned to Orange and opened a hairdressing salon attached to the Club Hotel in Summer Street.
Image courtesy Leader.
In early October 1916 the Commonwealth Government announced that all unmarried able-bodied men between the ages of 21 and 35 were to undertake military training leading to the possibility of service within the Commonwealth. Eligible men were able to appeal to an exemption court, and Stanley did this. An exemption court opened at Orange Courthouse on 19 October 1916 and was operational until November 1916.
On 27 October 1916 the Leader reported:
Stanley Michael Jordan, hairdresser, urged that he was the sole proprietor of a business, and supported his mother and sister. His only brother had already been called up. He was totally exempted while the conditions remained unaltered.
Less than a year later Stanley enlisted in Darwin. He embarked RMS Ormonde in Sydney on 2 March 1918, a private in the 31st Battalion, 15th Reinforcement. In May 1918 Private Jordan was hospitalised with influenza. He recovered, undertook further training at the 14th Training Battalion at Codford in England, and proceeded to France in August.
On 24 October Stanley was admitted to 8th Australian Field Ambulance with a reoccurrence of influenza. Two days later he was transferred to the 3rd Australian General Hospital at Abbeville, where, on 29 October, he died. Stanley was buried in the Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension.
Stanley Michael Jordan is commemorated on the Patrician Brothers’ Orange Roll of Honour and on panel number 118 on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
In 2015 Stanley Street in the Darwin suburb of Muirhead was named in his honour.
