The son of Isaiah Joseph Cordner, a bank manager, and Jessie Cordner, née Walker, he was born on 6 May 1890 at Bridgewater On Loddon, Victoria. His father remarried Mabel Emilie McKay in 1902. He had one full brother, Edward Clement Cordner, three half-brothers and one half-sister. He attended the Hamilton and Western District Boys' College from 1902 to 1906, and was a prefect in 1905 and school captain in 1906.
Footballer
As a schoolboy he was renowned for his long drop-kicks and his very strong marks. Recruited from Warrnambool, he played his first senior VFL match, aged 21, for Geelong, against Carlton, at Princes Park, on Saturday, 19 August 1911. He was given the single game to gauge his prospects for the 1912 season; he played well for Geelong in a high standard match, which Carlton won in the last quarter. Although he played well in Geelong's first match of the season, he was not selected again until the match against University on 8 June 1912. On a very windy day, with a bad football, and in a very low standard game, which Geelong eventually won by 37 points, 8.15 to 3.8, he was not amongst Geelong's best players. Cleared from Geelong to Collingwood on 9 April 1913, he played his first senior game for Collingwood, at Victoria Park, against Carlton, on 17 May 1913 ; he played well, in the backline, in a Collingwood team that won a hard-fought match by six points. In 1913 he played a total of ten senior games for Collingwood, including its Semi-Final 37-point loss to Fitzroy on 13 September 1913. He injured his collar-bone during the match, which was played in the rain, on a very wet and muddy ground. He remained on the field of play once injured, but was of little use. His half brother Laurence Osmaston "Larry" Cordner, and two of his cousins, Dr. Henry "Harry" Cordner and Dr. Edward Rae "Ted" Cordner, also played senior VFL football. Dr "Ted" was the father of the Don Cordner, Denis Cordner, Ted Cordner and John Cordner who all played for Melbourne in the 1940s.
Soldier
In 1914 he was working as a clerk, but he enlisted in Melbourne on 22 August 1914; the same day that he played his last match for Collingwood. He was the first Collingwood footballer to enlist. He served as a private in B Company of the 6th Battalion, First AIF, and embarked on 19 October 1914, aboard HMAT Hororata, for service overseas. His brother, Sergeant Edward Clement Cordner, enlisted on 18 May 1914, serving in the 13 Light Horse. His cousin, Captain Edward Rae "Ted" Cordner, served as a medical officer in the 6th Field Ambulance. His other cousin, Dr. Henry "Harry" Cordner, overseas at the time that war broke out, was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and served in France.
Death
He died on 25 April 1915, shot some four miles inland, after being cut off by the Turks and becoming separated from his Battalion at Cape Helles, the rocky headland at the southwesternmost tip of the Gallipoli peninsula. His body was never recovered. He was initially posted as "wounded" ; following a fruitless search of the relevant hospitals, he was posted as "wounded and missing". He was not officially declared to have been "killed in action" until after some twelve months of investigation had been conducted by the Red Cross. In an apparent act of kindness, the final declaration of his death was conveyed to his mother and father by the ReverendThomas Pearse Bennett, the vicar of Christ Church, Warrnambool. Pearse, who was also an Anglican military chaplain, had received the news by wire, that Cordner had been declared "killed in action", along with "expressions of sympathy with the deceased's parents from the King and Government", and took the news immediately to Cordner's parents at the Warrnambool National Bank.
