John Simpson Kirkpatrick, with donkey and wounded man at Gallipoli
Anzac donkey-man Kirkpatrick’s links to Newcastle, NSW
John Simpson Kirkpatrick, perhaps the best-known Anzac of them all, had some ties to Newcastle. The subject of repeated calls for recognition with a posthumous Victoria Cross, the famous “man with the donkey” was a popular figure on Gallipoli because of the huge risks he ran in order to rescue wounded men.Like many other Anzacs, Kirkpatrick was British. A “Geordie” from England’s industrial Tyneside, he left school at 13 to work as a milkman and on ships in the Mediterranean. In May 1910, aged 18, he arrived in Newcastle, NSW as a crew member on a…
