Jim Pender (footballer, born 1877)


James Robert Pender was an Australian rules footballer who played with Carlton Football Club in the Victorian Football League.

Family

The son of Michael Pender, and Mary Anne Pender, née O'Dowd, James Robert Pender was born in North Melbourne, Victoria on 3 July 1877.
His three brothers — Michael "Mick" Pender , Daniel Emmett "Dan" Pender , and Peter Lawrence John Aloysius "Laurie" Pender — all played VFL football.
He married Minne Ethel Harvey in 1900. Their son, James Michael "Jim" Pender, played one First XVIII match for Geelong in 1936.

Football

Recruited from the Wellington Football Club in the Geelong Junior football Association, he played 15 games with the Carlton First XVIII in 1898.

Military service

He enlisted in the First AIF on 9 July 1915.

Death

He was killed in action, in France, on 2 July 1916.
On 2 July 1916, while serving as the batman of Second Lieutenant Robert David Julian, and having been told that his officer Julian had been shot while in charge of a party raiding the German trenches, impaled upon barbed wire in "no man's Land", and very possibly dead, and that the others fighting with him had been able to bring him back to the Australian lines, Pender went out to find him and bring him back.
Pender did not return to the Australian lines, and was never seen again.
Pender was declared "missing in action" in July 1916; and was officially declared "killed in action on 2 July 1916" in 1917.

Memorial

He has no grave. His death is commemorated at the Villers–Bretonneux Australian National Memorial.

Footnotes