GOLLER, Alfred E., Rev., M.A. (1883-1918)
Assembly memorial minute 1918
The Rev. Alfred E. Goller, Chaplain with the Australian Imperial Forces, was born at Bannockburn, Victoria, 1883, being the son of an elder in the Moorabool charge. His interests were in the Church’s life from the very first, and his decision to make the ministry his life’s work was early made.
He received his education at the Geelong College and Ormond College. He was a good student, and went through the full Arts course, taking his Master of Arts degree, and a good place in the Theological Hall.
He served the Church in several places while a student, and in the two settled charges of Mia Mia and Birchip, resigning from Birchip to go on active service as a chaplain.
He was a man of very decided ability, and proved a most efficient and effective minister. Modest and self-effacing, he was at the same time a strong man with a very earnest and deeply spiritual mind, and a tact and winsomeness that won the confidence and love of his people everywhere. Particularly was he a man who won the respect and confidence of men. At the front he was joined to the 37th Battalion, and spent himself unsparingly in the service of the men under his care, and won a special place in their hearts by his manliness and devotion to them.
He fell at the post of duty on the Western Front in the midst of his devoted work, on the 29th September, 1918.
He leaves a widow and four young children, to whom the Commission extends its earnest sympathy.
Gender
- Male