Wyndham council’s plans to rename a Tarneit street after a soldier has been described as a “joke” by one of his descendants.
Bruce Tyzack said he was surprised when he found out Wyndham council had chosen to rename a street after Charles William Tyzack.
He said the clerk had enlisted in the army in 1916 aged 24 and was discharged about three months later citing soreness around a scar he was left with after his appendix was removed, two years earlier.
Mr Tyzack said the sergeant never left Australia.
“It’s embarrassing,” he said. “I’m sure there are far more deserving people. To me, it’s a joke.
“They haven’t even looked at his war records,” Mr Tyzack, of Tullamarine said.
Wyndham council announced last month its plans to rename parts of Sayers, Woods and Gard roads – all dissected by the Regional Rail Link – in honour of “local Anzac heroes” Charles William Tyzack, John Alcock and Henry Paget Densley.
Wyndham mayor Adele Hegedich said at the time renaming the roads would honour residents who had risked their lives for their country.
“Renaming these Wyndham roads after local Anzacs will mean that their names will remain synonymous with the community they lived in and fought to protect,” she said.
Wyndham chief executive Kelly Grigsby said the names were selected from a list of Anzacs whose records show a connection to Werribee.
Service records found in the National Archives of Australia show Private John Alcock died on August 9, 1916, of battle wounds received in France.
The Werribee resident was posthumously awarded plaque and star medals.
Gunner Paget Densley, of the 3rd Army Field Artillery Brigade, also fought in France and returned home after more than two years on the battlefield. His father’s address was listed as Werribee.
But Charles William Tyzack’s records reveal the Werribee resident enlisted in Melbourne on January 25, 1916.
He joined the 19th depot battalion in Geelong on February 7, 1916, and was discharged as medically unfit due to “painful adhesions following appendicitis”, just three months after signing up, on May 23, 1916.
Charles William Tyzack’s father, also of the same name, ran a popular drapery business in Watton Street until his death in 1950.
