Queensland’s last surviving First World War veteran Ted Smout became deeply involved in Sandgate community life after surviving the Western Front and building a civilian life that stretched well into a new century.
A State Library of Queensland account has revisited the life of Edward David “Ted” Smout, who died at 106 after becoming Queensland’s final living veteran of the First World War.
A teenager sent to war
Born in Brisbane in 1898, Smout was 17 years and eight months old when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in September 1915. He overstated his age by a year and later served with the 3rd Australian Sanitary Section of the Australian Army Medical Corps.
Smout served on the Western Front, inspecting sanitation and water supplies and taking on first-aid and stretcher-bearing duties during fighting. At Passchendaele, he later recalled working for about 72 hours with little rest as wounded men were carried along duckboards through deep mud.
He also remembered reaching the scene after German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, was fatally shot down in April 1918. Smout returned to Australia in 1919 and later described experiencing delayed shell shock after coming home.
A place in Sandgate
After a long insurance career and years living elsewhere in Brisbane and Sydney, Smout and his wife Ella eventually settled in Sandgate, where he became active in community organisations.
His local activities included the Sandgate Senior Citizens Building Committee, Sandgate Meals on Wheels and Sandgate Rotary, along with the Widow Fund and Probus Club. His contribution was also recognised when he was named the Combined Sandgate Services Clubs’ Leading Citizen of the Year.
Smout received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1978 for service to the community. Two decades later, at the age of 100, he was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by France in recognition of his First World War service on French soil.
Photo Credit: UNSW Canberra Australians at War Film Archive
Sandgate Uniting Church became his long-time local church, where he usually sat beside his son.
A final farewell in Sandgate
Smout died on 22 June 2004, aged 106, on what would have been his 81st wedding anniversary with his late wife, Ella.
About 600 people gathered at Sandgate Uniting Church eight days later for his state funeral. His Army slouch hat rested on his coffin, while the seat he normally occupied beside his son was left empty.
Family members, senior military representatives and members of the community attended the service. Smout left three children, 12 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.
His name crosses Bramble Bay
Five years after Smout’s death, Bracken Ridge resident Brian Cantwell proposed his name for the new bridge across Bramble Bay, one of more than 30 suggestions submitted during a naming process connected with Queensland’s Q150 celebrations in 2009.
Cantwell’s nomination highlighted Smout’s war service, honours and decades of community involvement. The bridge formed part of the Houghton Highway duplication project between Brisbane’s northern bayside and the Redcliffe Peninsula.
The 2.74-kilometre Ted Smout Memorial Bridge opened between Brighton and Clontarf on 11 July 2010. More than 60,000 people walked across it during the opening celebrations, while members of the Smout family crossed in vintage cars.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0
The bridge begins in neighbouring Brighton, but Smout’s Sandgate connection had been established decades earlier through the community organisations he served and the local church where his state funeral was held.
Published 28-Sept-2026
