Early Years 1898-1917
Casserly was born in Perth, Western Australia. His Irish-born father had moved to Western Australia in search of gold, but ended up working for the railways and on the wharves, barely earning enough to put food on the table for his 11 children.
Casserly attended the Christian Brothers College in Perth until he left school at 13 to become a blacksmith's apprentice, and was working at the blacksmith's when World War I commenced. In 1917, he was working as a fireman for the West Australian Railways when he saw an advertisement by the Australian army for experienced railwaymen to serve in France, and he enlisted on Saint Patrick's Day.
Read more about this topic: Peter Casserly
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“When any man expresses doubt to me as to the use that I or any other woman might make of the ballot if we had it, my answer is, What is that to you? If you have for years defrauded me of my rightful inheritance, and then, as a stroke of policy, of from late conviction, concluded to restore to me my own domain, must I ask you whether I may make of it a garden of flowers, or a field of wheat, or a pasture for kine?”
—Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898)