The two letters survived the past century inside a Schweppes-brand bottle, which Debra Brown found on Wharton Beach in early October

Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent

November 6, 2025 12:40 p.m.

Debra Brown found the bottle on Wharton Beach near her home in Esperance, Western Australia. Pexels

On August 15, 1916, Australian soldier Malcolm Alexander Neville dashed off a two-page letter to his mother as he sailed aboard a troop ship headed to Europe to fight in World War I.

“Having a real good time, food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea,” he wrote. When he finished, Neville rolled up the note, tucked it carefully into a bottle and tossed the glass vessel overboard.

Now, more than a century later, Neville’s message in a bottle has turned up on a beach in Australia.

Debra Brown found the Schweppes-brand bottle on October 9 while picking up trash on Wharton Beach, located along the southern coast of the state of Western Australia, about 500 miles from Perth. She was with her husband, Peter, and her daughter, Felicity, reports Rod McGuirk for the Associated Press.

109-year-old letters in a bottle wash up on Australian beach | REUTERS

Brown, who lives in the nearby town of Esperance, thinks the bottle was likely buried in the beach’s dunes and only recently became exposed because of severe winter storms.

“It’s so well-preserved,” she tells the Australian Associated Press. “If it had lived in the ocean for 109 years, it would have sunk to the bottom. The cork would have disintegrated.”

She could tell the bottle had some sort of message inside, but she wasn’t optimistic she’d be able to read it. Still, Brown removed the cork and set the vessel on a windowsill, in hopes of drying out some of the water that had pooled inside.

Eventually, she used surgical tweezers to gently free Neville’s penciled missive. He had signed the note “Your loving son Malcolm ... Somewhere at sea,” and had asked “the person finding this bottle” to send it to his mother, Robertina Neville, in Wilkawatt, South Australia.

Brown began scouring the internet for information about Neville, who was killed in action in France in April 1917 at the age of 28 while serving in the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion. She also tried to find any surviving relatives and ended up tracking down his great-nephew, Herbie Neville, who lives in Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory.

She called the workplace listed on Herbie Neville’s Facebook page, and he got back to her a few days later, per the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Katrina Tap and Sally Sara. Since then, “all of his cousins and sisters and everyone have been in touch with me, and they’re very excited about the whole find,” Brown tells the Australian Associated Press.

But the bottle wasn’t done giving up its secrets. Inside, Brown also found another note written by a different soldier, 37-year-old William Kirk Harley. His mother had already died by the time he went off to war, so he instructed the finder to keep the letter.

Harley was wounded twice in battle but ultimately survived, returning home to Australia. He died of cancer in 1934.

Brown was able to locate Harley’s granddaughter, Ann Turner, and send her the letter. Turner is one of Harley’s five living grandchildren. “We do very much feel like our grandfather has reached out to us from the grave,” Turner tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Quick fact: When did Australia enter World War I?

When Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, Australian leaders pledged to support Britain.

Both men had been sailing aboard the troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat when they wrote their letters. The vessel left Adelaide on August 12, 1916, for a six-week sailing to reinforce troops on Europe’s Western Front.

Several other World War I-era bottles with letters inside have turned up along the coastline between Adelaide and Perth. Bored and looking for ways to pass the time, soldiers often kept themselves busy by writing letters and diaries at sea, according to Bryce Abraham, a curator at the Australian War Memorial.

Though Neville and Harley sounded upbeat in their notes, Australian soldiers were also likely terrified of the dangers ahead of them.

“They knew it wasn’t going to be a great adventure like had been portrayed at the outbreak of the war,” Abraham tells the Australian Associated Press.

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