Mordecai Jenkins was one of fourteen children born to Lemuel and Mary Jenkins. Six of their children had been born alive, but had later, and before 1911, died. The remaining eight children were:

Susan Jenkins, born in 1871
Annie Jenkins, born in 1873
Thomas Jenkins, born in 1880
Mary Jenkins, born in 1883
Samuel Jenkins, born in 1885
Mordecai Jenkins, born in 1887
William Jenkins, born in 1890, and
Maggie Jenkins, born in 1891.

In 1901, at 14 years of age, Mordecai is shown as a coal hewer, the same for his older brothers and father, Lemuel.

By 1911, only Samuel, Mordecai and William are shown as still living with their parents at 132 Commercial Street, New Tredegar.

Mordecai must have had visions of a new life, ‘down under’. On 6th June 1913 he left the Port of London on a ship called the Orama, bound for Brisbane, Australia. The ship was run by the ‘Orient Line’ and under the Captaincy of A J Coad.

When war was declared in August 1914, Mordecai was not among the first to enlist, indeed his papers show that he enlisted at Brisbane on the 2nd July 1915, almost one year into the war.

He was assigned service number 2705 and was assigned at first to the 15th Battalion, then transferred to the 4th Pioneer Battalion where he remained until his death in France.

On the 4th November 1915 Mordecai boarded the Minnewaska ship, bound for Gallipoli and on Christmas Day 1915, he disembarked at the port of Alexandria.

Mordecai could not have suited well to military life, since his service record shows a series of disciplinary hearings for what was basically disobedience and being absent without leave.

His service records show that he was at disciplinary hearings in January, February, March, April, May and June on 1916 on each occasion for either being absent without leave or for disobeying a senior officer. On one of those occasions, he simply refused to get inoculated, but, was ‘disobeying a senior officer’.

His disobedience did not end there, for in November 1916, he was sentenced to 40 days of Field Punishment No1 and had 56 days pay taken for disobeying an officer in the field. His disobedience continued thereafter until on the 1st July 1917, he was taken to Miltary Prison No5 while awaiting his next disciplinary hearing.

The offence was desertion, and not ‘being absent without leave’. This was for the second time too.

On 11th August 1917, Mordecai Jenkins, Private 2705, 4th Pioneers, A.I.F. was sentenced to DEATH by Brigadier General C Rosenthal. However, the Australian Army did not approve of the execution of their soldiers and the sentence was reduced by Lieutenant General H Gordon of the 2nd Army to 10 years penal servitude.

He spent a further few days at No5 Military Prison, when on 20th July, 1917 he was released in order to re-join his unit. The sentence was postponed.

Mordecai went to France with his unit and there is no record of further disobedience. He died of a shell wound to the chest while on active service.

After his death, the Australian Military Authorities sent two parcels of Mordecai’s personal belongings to his father. Labels One and Two show the next of kin address.