Career
A Queenslander by birth, Tidyman debuted for Easts in 1913 joining a star-studded line-up that included Dally Messenger, Wally Messenger, Sandy Pearce, Larry O"Malley, Les Cubitt, Dan Frawley and Arthur "Pony" Halloway who had already posted two premiership victories on the trot in 1911 and 1912. He made his representative debut for New South Wales in 1914 and that same year played in two Test matches for Australia against the touring English side including the famous Rorke"s Drift Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 4 July 1914 where England, reduced to ten men, held on to defeat Australia 14-6. He is listed on the Australian Players Register as Kangaroo Number.
94.
Prior to war service, he appeared in an Australian film In the Last Stride (1916). Bob Tidyman was the only one of his team to enlist. Tidyman joined the 19th Battalion on France"s Western Front on 25 September 1916.
The battalion had taken part in the battles at Pozières in July and August and had suffered terrible casualties.
The 19th Battalion was attacking at Flers, Somme in the last action of the Somme Offensive of 1916 before winter set in when Tidyman was listed as missing in action on 14 November 1916. A report said: "We gained our objective and took two lines of trenches.
We made 50 prisoners. Tidyman was told to look after these prisoners but I think he was sniped taking them down." His body was not recovered for burial and his name is listed on the Australian Memorial at Villers Bretonneux, along with 11,000 other Australians who fell in France and have no known grave.
Tidyman had two brothers in France – William and Christopher Tidyman who both served with the 55th and 17th Battalions.
Both were wounded but survived the war.
