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Every object has a story. So too do the spaces where objects should be – but are sometimes missing. It’s in this absence where deeper stories lie, and the museum’s role to research and reconnect missing pieces. 

Inside Queensland Museum Kurilpa’s Anzac Legacy Gallery, visitors encounter a small, deliberate absence: a cavity marking where the war medals of Private Archibald (Archie) James Marshall should be. It’s a quiet but powerful reminder that history is not only what we can see and hold, but also what has been lost, overlooked, or missing.

Image: Only known image of Private Archibald Marshall

A short life of service and sacrifice  

Archie’s story begins in southwest Queensland, where he was born around 1896 in Bollon, in the Balonne Shire. As a child, he was removed from his family and sent to the Barambah Aboriginal Settlement – now known as Cherbourg – under the government policies of the time. Like many First Nations people living under the 1897 Aboriginal Protection Act, Archie’s life was tightly controlled, from where he lived to how he worked. 

In June 1917, in his early twenties, Archie enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Maryborough. His enlistment came at a turning point – until that year, men of Aboriginal descent were largely barred from joining the Australian Army. As restrictions eased to bolster troop numbers, Archie became one of more than 1200 First Nations soldiers who served during the First World War. In reality, that number is likely far higher, as many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men concealed their identity in order to enlist. 

After a few months of training in England, Archie was deployed to France in January 1918 with the 41st Battalion and was positioned near the Somme. Just months later, on 24 April 1918, he was killed in action during the German Spring Offensive near Amiens. He was 24 years old. 

Archie is buried in Ribemont Communal Cemetery Extension in France. But the story does not end there. 

Image: Ruined village in Somme area, occupied by Australian troops.

A soldier who never returned, war medals lost to the system of the time 

Because he was still considered a ward of the state under the Aboriginal Protection Act, his war medals and memorial certificate were not sent to family, but instead to the Chief Protector of Aborigines – a government official who controlled many aspects of First Nations peoples’ lives. Although Archie had nominated a next of kin, efforts to locate them were unsuccessful. The medals disappeared into the system. Their whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Document: National Archives of Australia

This absence is what visitors encounter in the museum’s Anzac Legacy Gallery. 

Unable to recover the medals, Queensland Museum has chosen not to replace them with replicas. Instead, their outlines are etched into perspex – a physical representation of loss. This striking curatorial decision asks visitors to reflect not only on Archie’s service and sacrifice, but also on the systems that shaped – and limited the freedoms of his short life. 

Image: Archie Marshall display in Queensland Museum’s Anzac Legacy Gallery. 

Why Stories Like Archie’s Matter 

Archie’s story is one of many within the gallery that speaks to the complexity of Queensland’s wartime history. While the First World War is often remembered through grand narratives of service and nationhood, it is built from hundreds of thousands of individual experiences – some honoured, others rarely told. 

Sharing stories like Archie’s matters because they broaden our understanding of that history. They reveal the barriers First Nations soldiers faced, both in enlisting and in the treatment they received after their service. They remind us that recognition was not equally given, and that remembrance itself can be incomplete. 

A Legacy Still Being Told 

In the Anzac Legacy Gallery, the absence of Archie’s medals is not a gap to be filled – it is the story. 
It invites us to look closer, to question what we inherit from the past, and to consider whose stories are still waiting to be fully told and remembered.  
Discover more Queensland stories in the museum’s Anzac Legacy Gallery, free and open daily: museum.qld.gov.au/kurilpa/whats-on/anzac-legacy-gallery