Looking for Merlin: A story from the First World War
About the Exhibition
On a smoke-filled battlefield in France, on 2 October 1918, twenty-seven-year-old poet, farmer, and Wagga boy Merlin Kinneir Tarte went into the lines during the battle of St Quinten’s Canal, the last battle Australian forces fought in. He would not survive.
More than a hundred years later, researchers at the Museum of the Riverina came across his name and an account of his death. What began as a standard enquiry slowly expanded to an international research quest. Full of surprises and heartbreak, from Wagga Wagga to the trenches in Belgium and the battlefields in France, Looking for Merlin recreates one person’s experience during the war.
Explore the digital exhibition to uncover Merlin’s story and follow the path that brought his history back into the light.
Explore the digital exhibition
See Merlin's personal effects in person
This digital exhibition accompanies a physical display of Merlin Kinneir Tarte's personal effects, recovered from the front in France, at Museum of the Riverina's Botanic Gardens Site.
