Membership Officer

Bill Cheeseman

Bill Cheeseman was born in Tiverton, Devon, England but lived near Ebchester, County Durham before moving to Portland in Dorset.  He emigrated to Australia with his parents in 1957, settling in the City of Redcliffe on Moreton Bay in Queensland. 

 Bill grew up near Ebchester (or Vindomora, as it was known in Roman times) a few miles from Hadrian’s Wall.  Later, he moved to Portland in Dorset, which at that time was a major naval base.    At Portland, a fortress built by Rufus the Red, and referred to as “Bow and Arrow castle” in Thomas Hardy’s novels, still clings precariously to the cliff while across the bay, Henry VIII’s Sandsfoot Castle is slowly crumbling into the sea.  The surrounding countryside of Dorset is also steeped in history. The Iron Age hill fort known as Maiden Castle is just a few miles away from the nearby Roman town of Dorchester.  After arriving in Australia, Bill was interested to learn that where he lived in Queensland was the site of the first settlement (1824) in what was then known as the Moreton Bay Penal Colony.  Living near this compendium of military and historical sites kindled in Bill an interest in military matters which he is now able to foster.

 After some twenty-plus years in the banking and finance industry, including five years of National Service Training/Army Reserve as a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Army Ordnance Corps, Bill worked in the Department of Economics at the University of Queensland before joining the Commonwealth Public Service in Canberra, from which he has recently retired.  He now works as a volunteer at the Australian War Memorial on a research project about Australian Peacekeeping and Post-Cold War Operations.  He has also researched his family’s military history from the Boer War to Vietnam.

 Bill holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree and a Master of Regional Economics degree from the University of Queensland, a Graduate Certificate in Business Management from the Australian Graduate School of Management, Sydney and a Graduate Certificate in Public Sector Management from Griffith University, Queensland.

Page last updated on: 19/03/08

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