Stanley Goble - Early Career

Early Career

Born in Croydon, Victoria, Stanley James Goble was one of four sons to an Australian father, George, and an English mother, Ann. He apparently received little schooling, and began his working life as a clerk with the Victorian Railways at the age of sixteen. By twenty-three he was, like his father, a stationmaster.

Goble was prevented from joining the Australian Imperial Force at the beginning of World War I after failing the stringent medical criteria; he wrote later that "only applicants of the finest physiques were considered suitable for the first contingent of Australian troops". With his three brothers already on active service, however, he decided to travel to England at his own expense and enlist in the British armed forces.