Biography
Lockett was born in the small Victorian town of Waanyarra, near Bendigo. He left school at the age of 12 to work on a local farm. Later, he worked for his uncles in The Mallee. On 24 March 1916, he travelled to Mildura to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force. He served in France, earning promotion to sergeant and was discharged on 20 September 1919.
After the war, Lockett returned to The Mallee and selected a 640 acres (260 ha) block of land in Linga, Victoria, deciding to make his living as a farmer. In 1923, he married Maybell Ingwerson and they had four children together. In 1963, the couple retired to Bendigo, leaving the farmland (which now covered more than 130,000 acres (53,000 ha)), in the care of their children and grandchildren.
In 1998, Lockett and his known fellow surviving veterans were awarded Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur by the French government for their service in the war. In 2000, at the age of 109, he participated in the 2000 Olympic Torch Relay. On 11 June 2001, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for service to the community of Bendigo, particularly as a representative of Australia war veterans. Lockett died of kidney failure at age 111 and was the oldest man ever to have lived in the Southern Hemisphere.
At the time of his death, he was survived by four children; Jack, Kevin, Joyce and Ron; fifteen grandchildren; and twenty-four great-grandchildren.
Read more about this topic: Jack Lockett
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