Frederick Forrest


Frederick Edward Forrest MC was an Australian soldier and politician.
He was born in Rheola, Victoria, to miner Edward James Forrest and Cecelia Hannah Atchison. He worked in Queensland and joined the volunteer defence forces in Victoria before moving to Launceston. On 14 September 1904 he married Bertha Ada Graham, with whom he had three children. During the First World War he served with the 7th Battalion and artillery units, and was wounded at Gallipoli and Passchendaele, winning the Military Cross. After the war he was secretary of the Tasmanian Returned and Services League from 1919 to 1921, and from 1921 to 1924 he was the RSL's general secretary. In 1924 he returned to Melbourne, becoming an estate agent, although he remained a lieutenant colonel in the Citizen Military Forces. In 1927 he was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Caulfield, representing the new Australian Liberal Party. Re-elected as a Liberal in 1929, he died in East Melbourne in 1930.