James Couley married Elizabeth Cheetham. Their children 10 included:
- ELIZABETH - born 1882 in Gulgong district (NSW BDM 22160/1882 (mistranscribed as COWLEY); married Alfred FITZGERALD 1899, near Gulgong
- JAMES "Jim" COULEY - born in Gulgong district (NSW BDM 24080/1883) (mistranscribed as CONLEY); enlisted 19/7/1915
- CHARLES - born 1885 Coonabarabran
- MATILDA - born 1886 Coonabarabran
- SOPHIA - born 1886 Coonabarabran
- WILLIAM - born 1888 Binnaway/Coonabarabran; enlisted 13/1/1916
- GEORGE - born 1890 Coonabarabran
- ALICE - born 1892 Coonabarabran
- MARY - born 1894 Coonabarabran
- JOHN "Jack"- born 1896 Coonabarabran; enlisted 16/3/1918
Jim Couley (bn 1883) was one of 10 children, the eldest son and a younger brother to my great grandmother Elizabeth (bn 1882, married Alfred Fitzgerald 1899 near Gulgong). Their mother, also Elizabeth (nee Cheetham, Aboriginal, daughter of Matilda Murphy and I'm unsure if Wiradjuri or Gamilaroi nation) died in 1898 in Coonabarabran Hospital when her youngest child was just 2 years of age.
Jim never married and was 55 years when he died (1936) from Pulmonary Tuberculosis at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick after living his last few years at a health sanitorium in Sydney. Two of Jim's brothers also served in WW1, William enlisted 13/1/1916 and baby of the family Jack enlisted 16/3/1918 and all three returned to Australia in 1919.
Source: Pauline KuhnerRepresentative of the broad cross section of men serving in the AIF is the next Indigenous MM winner James Couley. His occupation, as again with many Indigenous men, was in the rural sector: a shearer, his tallies often averaging 180 sheep a day. He was also a prominent bareknuckle fighter, his achievements in this regard being known to many in the Gilgandra and Coonamble districts.
Taken on strength by the 1st Battalion he was a tall man of 5’ 11½’ (181.6 cm), 168 pounds (76.2 kg) in weight and with an expanded chest measurement of 41¾” (106 cm). When the War broke out "Big Jim" was the first man in Coonamble to enlist for active service abroad.
Heroes do not fit any stereotype and James Couley has a record littered with being absent without leave, drunkenness, disobedience and using “improper language to a superior officer”. Yet when on active service it is a record which also displays the fighting qualities prized in a soldier.
In May 1917 the 1st Battalion was involved in heavy fighting, on this occasion at the Second Battle of Bullecourt. The battalion’s war diary records that on May 6 the Germans put down a “heavy barrage” and that the battalion on their right was driven back and that the position of the 1st had become “critical”. It was only after an hour’s heavy fighting that the position was restored. It then goes on to describe how the “fighting had been at close quarters” and that the enemy’s shelling had been “exceptionally heavy, destructive and constant”; it concludes with praise for how the men had “coped”.
These then were the conditions under which James Couley was to display “conspicuous gallantry”. As with Simpson, Couley’s bravery concerned the rescue of the wounded. He had been a bomb-thrower and stretcher bearer, sometimes carrying the men on his back and he had done so for 72 hours.
Awards for bravery in times of war seem paradoxically split between those who take and those who save life; for James Couley it was for the latter. In spite of what might appear to be a chequered time during his time in the army, he had at Bullecourt shown selfless heroism. On several occasions his name was mentioned in despatches, and among members of the 1st Batallion he was known as the "Uncrowned V.C."
Source: Brad Stubbs. University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis: "My own darling laddie". In search of George Wenham: an Aboriginal Anzac and the history of denial (Pages 272-275) by Michael C. Wenham BA, Dip. Ed.
