Marking (First World War) Private Graves Grants Program

Overview

The Australian Government is inviting applications via a Demand Driven process to apply to deliver services under Program 3.1 – War Graves under Outcome 3 of the DVA Portfolio Budget Statement 2023 to 2024. An estimated 331,800 Australian personnel were deployed during the First World War. Approximately 60,000 were killed or are listed as missing in action, leaving some 271,800 service men and women who returned to Australia. When they passed away, some were buried without a funeral or headstone. More than 30,000 of these veterans have since had their deaths accepted as related to their war service and have been officially commemorated as post-war dead. The objective of the program is to contribute to community recognition of the service and sacrifice of service personnel in the First World War who are not eligible for official commemoration by Government. It does this by providing funding to contribute to the cost of establishing a grave marker on currently unmarked private graves. The intended outcome of the program is to contribute to the work being undertaken by the community to mark private graves of veterans of the First World War so as to enable community recognition of service and to preserve and add to the knowledge of, or provide information about, Australia’s wartime heritage.