William Scurry

William Charles Scurry, (30 October 1895 – 28 December 1963) was an Australian soldier who invented the self-firing "drip rifle" while serving as a lance corporal in the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War. He was decorated for his invention and was later commissioned and served as an officer during the fighting on the Western Front, where he commanded a mortar battery before being wounded in action.

In later life Scurry worked as an architectural modeller and orchardist before his war injuries forced him to retire. During the Second World War, he served on home service, as commandant of an internment camp before retiring to civilian life following the end of the war. He died in 1963.

Early life Scurry was born in Carlton, Melbourne, to William Charles Scurry, an architectural modeller, and his English wife, Bessie Scurry (née Preston). developed the self-firing "drip" rifle, which worked simply by having water from an empty ration tin drip into a lower tin attached to the trigger of a loaded rifle. When it was time to evacuate a small hole would be punched in the bottom of the uppermost tin. When the water in the lower tin reached a certain weight the rifle fired. and Mentioned in Despatches. Following the evacuation, after the AIF had returned to Egypt, Scurry was promoted to sergeant, and on 20 February 1916 to second lieutenant. At this time the AIF underwent a period of expansion and experienced men were needed as cadre for new battalions that were being raised; subsequently Scurry was transferred to the 58th Battalion, and in June, as his battalion was deployed to France where they would serve in the trenches along the Western Front, Scurry was promoted to lieutenant. In 1916 he was badly wounded in Petillon, France, when inspecting a new kind of fuse on an unexploded bomb. He was evacuated to England and eventually lost the sight in one eye, and his right index finger. However, he continued to serve, and became an instructor at I Anzac Corps School at Aveluy in June 1917. He later became the School's chief instructor, then returned to the front in 1918. and served with the 17th Garrison Battalion with the rank of captain, later becoming commandant of the Tatura Internment Camp with the rank of major. He was discharged on 8 October 1945 and retired to Croydon, where he died on 28 December 1963 of a coronary occlusion, and was interred at Lilydale cemetery.