Australian service boots : Corporal G Binns, 1 Machine Gun Battalion, AIF

Pair of brown leather AIF issue ankle boots without toecaps. The soles are of leather, attached with small iron tacks, the heels having large iron nails for reinforcement, and to reduce wear. There are eight pairs of brown painted brass eyelets per boot for laces, the laces being brown cotton. The words 'THE GILLESPIE SHOE GOULBURN' within a circle, are impressed into the leather above the inner ankle, and '9 4 1916' is incised into each sole.

Gordon Binns was born in 1899, and began his compulsory cadet service in March 1913. In February 1917, aged 18, he enlisted in the AIF, becoming number 712 in the 13th reinforcements to 2 Machine Gun Company. After sailing to England on the 'SUEVIC', he was sent in March 1918 to reinforce 6 Infantry Battalion, but almost immediately transferred back to 1 Machine Gun (MG) Battalion, of which 2 MG Company was a part. Binns was wounded in action on 10 August 1918 when his unit was supporting the Australian attack on Lihons, and spent over a month in hospital. Upon release, he was again transferred, this time to the Australian Provost Corps, where he served out the remainder of the war. Gordon Binns returned to Australia in 1919. He died in 1976.