William Dunstan

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William Dunstan (8 March 1895 – 2 March 1957) was an Australian soldier and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for bravery in battle. He was born in Ballarat, Victoria, and before the war worked as a messenger boy in a draper’s shop.

In World War I, Dunstan served in the Australian Imperial Force with the 7th Battalion. At the Battle of Lone Pine on 9 August 1915, he was a corporal when Turkish forces attacked the center of the trench. Dunstan, along with Lieutenant Frederick Harold Tubb and Corporal Alexander Burton, helped defend and rebuild a sandbag barricade that had been blown in. The Turks attacked again twice, but Dunstan and his companions repelled them each time. For his actions, he was awarded the Victoria Cross at the age of 20. He was later promoted to lieutenant and his bravery was formally recognized, including being mentioned in despatches. He was blinded for almost a year after Lone Pine.

After the war, Dunstan worked with the Repatriation Department in Melbourne and, in 1921, joined The Herald and Weekly Times as an accountant, eventually rising to the position of general manager.

Dunstan died on 2 March 1957 in Toorak, Victoria. His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. In 1995, a memorial was erected in Sturt Street, Ballarat, in his honour, and the Dunstan VC Club at Puckapunyal is named after him. He was survived by his wife, Marjorie, and three children: William "Bill" Dunstan, Helen McIntosh, and Keith Dunstan, the latter a well-known journalist and writer.