Kangaroo March Banner Appeal

Help us preserve the Kangaroo March Banner for generations to come

Museum of the Riverina is seeking your support to conserve the Kangaroo March Banner, a nationally significant recent addition to our collection. A powerful symbol of Wagga Wagga’s ANZAC history, it is one of only three known WWI recruitment banners held in museum collections, making it both rare and irreplaceable.

Time has taken its toll, and this remarkable object now requires vital conservation. With your help, we can undertake essential cleaning, stabilise fragile painted areas and the banner’s fabric, and repair worn areas to prevent further deterioration. These works will also include restitching and reattaching decorative elements and the creation of a custom archival storage box, using specialised packing materials to ensure its long-term protection.

Together, we can preserve this important piece of local and national history for generations to come, here in Wagga Wagga, where it belongs.

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History of the Kangaroo March

December 1915, and recruitment for World War One was slowing significantly. The newspapers were brimming with lists of the dead and wounded men were arriving home forever changed. It was not hard to see why fervour for war was fading. A new strategy was needed to reinvigorate enlistment in the army.

Snowball marches involved a troop of enlisted men marching from their own rural town to a major recruitment hub, hopefully attracting more and more volunteers along the way. Of these snowball marches the Kangaroo March, which began right here in Wagga, was by far the longest, famously being described by the Wagga Wagga Mayor Hugh Oates as a march to Berlin via Sydney.

The march began with 88 volunteers from Wagga. By the time the march reached Sydney it had swelled to 251. These soldiers were known as the “Kangaroos.” The Kangaroo March’s departure from Wagga was a tremendous event, with entertainment, music and gifts, including a beautiful marching banner from the mayor, reading “I go out to return.” The fanfare of the Kangaroo March carried along their journey from town to town and cemented their place in digger legend.

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While their journey from Wagga was one of excitement, this changed to horror as many of the Kangaroos stepped onto the Western front in July 1916. They participated in Australia’s first action on the Western front, the Battle of Fromelles. Although it was intended as a feint, the German defences were underestimated. The operation was a disaster, with 2000 Australian soldiers killed, and 3000 casualties.

Many surviving Kangaroos went on to serve on the front to the end of the war. At its conclusion a full quarter of the Kangaroos who served in France died. Half of the Kangaroos were injured or gassed. All those who did come back, came back changed forever.

It is the very same banner that was gifted to the Kangaroo’s in December of 1915 that Museum of the Riverina is seeking funds to restore and preserve for generations to come.

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