RAA LIAISON LETTER- 2025 – 2026 EDITION CANNONBALL SUPPLEMENT 131 C. E. W. Bean, The A.I.F. in France 1917 (1933) C. E. W. Bean, The A.I.F. in France 1918, 2 vols (1937, 1942) G. Long, To Benghazi (1952) E. V. Haywood, Six Years in Support (1959) D. McCarthy, South-West Pacific Area—First Year (1959) D. Dexter, The New Guinea Offensives (1961) D. Horner, The Gunners (1995) series B883, item VX12777 (National Archives of Australia) Barker papers, PR84/323 and PR01773 (Australian War Memorial) private information. Citation details SN Gower, 'Barker, Lewis Ernest Stephen (1895–1981)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barker-lewisernest-stephen-12175/text21819, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 16 March 2026. Brigadier LES Barker, CBE, DSO, MC EXTRACT FROM ARTICLE BY BRIG JOHN COX PUBLISHED IN CANNONBALL EDITION 102. Lewis or Les Barker was an RMC artillery graduate who saw service with the 8th Field Artillery Brigade in 1916 on the Western Front. After the war Barker was the model for a plaster relief “Bringing up the Guns” by sculptor May Butler-George. He recounted around the time of his farewell from Army service in Adelaide in 1948 that he had a “permanent reminder of his Army life in a 5ft. plaster cast of the bronze artillery panel at the base of the Mont St. Quentin memorial in France”, and that the “panel, prepared by Melbourne artist Miss May Butler-George, shows, Australian soldiers, including Brigadier. Barker, grouped round a gun” (The Mail, November 20, 1948, page 27). From NLA Trove: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55899 754?searchTerm=May%20Butler-George# Barker died in 1981. Before his death it is known Barker generously gave two Tobruk signal cannons; one to 1st Regiment RAA and one to the School of Artillery. He also gave his sword to the Regiment and until now it has been on display in the Regiment Officers Mess at the School of Artillery. It is also highly probable that Barker also gave the plaster relief to the School of Artillery at North Head in the 1960’s, however a record of the gifting is yet to be found. First World War Gunners in Art ‘BRINGING UP THE GUNS, MONT ST QUENTIN AUGUST 8, 1918’ is a rare and significant item of war art from 1923-25. It is the artist’s pattern for the creation of a bronze relief panel, which with its memorial was destroyed by the Germans in World War Two. The Australian War Memorial, in recognition of the significance of the bronze had a copy recast in 1996, displaying it in Canberra. In 1923 the Australian war artist May ButlerGeorge created two bronze reliefs for what became the infamous 2nd Australian Division Memorial at Mont St Quentin in France. Infamous and provocative because on the memorial was a larger-than-life Australian digger bayoneting a German eagle as a symbol of victory.
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