Much sympathy is felt for Mr. S. M. Solomon, the City Treasurer, and Mrs. Solomon, in the bereavement they have sustained by the death of their only son, Lieut. Kenneth [Keneth] M. H. Solomon, of the 14th Gloucester Regiment, at Devonport Military Hospital, from wounds. This brave young man, who was studying for the profession of barrister at the Inner Temple, London, enlisted at the beginning of the war. He was a scholar of the Sydney Grammar School, and passed his degree of B.A. at the Sydney University, his career at both institutions being a distinguished one. He was a cultured and refined gentleman, of charming manners, which made him beloved by his friends, and a very promising life was cut short by his response to the call of duty. His feelings on this point may he judged from reading the following passage from one of his last letters to his father—
"If anyone objects to enlisting on personal or sentimental grounds, he's a fool. If nobody fought, everyone would be the sufferer. I'm not a bit sentimental over the war, but in great earnest. For any young man to turn out when a 'scrap' threatens seems to me as natural as breathing—he deserves no glamour, nor does he merit being treated after the event as though the credit thrust upon him wasn't its own reward. Do you know if, goodness forbid! our arms were to fail, I wouldn't live on under under another regime—I couldn't. There is a sort of spiritual freedom in our Umpire that other Peoples neither need nor recognise. To me it's everything. I've no doubt it is to you, too; and I knew from the beginning that flopping into the war headlong as I did would be the only course you could wish me to take. Au revoir, dad, dear. There's not much excitement over our going, and our phlegm is a great asset in a crisis, but I can't help thinking a little of what is ahead, and hoping that we're spared to see one another again (not too far ahead), and talk over Europe's bad dreams, her cures, and awakening."
'Solomon, Keneth Maurice (1888–1915)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/solomon-keneth-maurice-20532/text31429, accessed 6 October 2024.
4 October,
1888
Woollahra, Sydney,
New South Wales,
Australia
18 September,
1915
(aged 26)
London,
Middlesex,
England
Includes the religion in which subjects were raised, have chosen themselves, attendance at religious schools and/or religious funeral rites; Atheism and Agnosticism have been included.