Hanging upon the wall at Sherry House are the names of 38 men who were once viticulture students before they were sent to fight.

But when research scientists Meredith Mitchell and Viv Burnett went digging to find out what happened to the men whose names appear on the roll, they found an invitation which indicated almost 100 men from the school fought in the war.

Ms Burnett said while they hadn’t found the official roll, they did find a record showing it existed.

“There was an event held in 1919 that welcomed home the boys after they served in the war,” she said.

“And on that invitation it says Viticultural College Honour Roll and has a list of more names, which are different to the one we have here.

“Over the course of this year we will be contacting people to try and find it, but if not we might make a new one.”

Yesterday a group of staff from the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources learnt how to knit poppies and heard about former students sent to war 100 years ago.

Many of the men, who had no family, were sent to the college in 1904 by the Neglected Children’s Department.

Ms Mitchell said after researching her two great uncles on the Honouring Anzac website, she was inspired to look into the honour roll of those with no family.

“I searched the Old Boys column and the three who stood out were Dudderidge, Clover and Conquest, who all died in WWI,” she said.

“Dudderidge and Clover died in the Anzac landing at Gallipoli and are buried over there, while Conquest was a German prisoner of war and died in France.

“There was also Lewis Kaiser, who was an Australian citizen, and he received a distinguished conduct medal and a military medal and he came back after the war.”

Vietnam veteran and Rutherglen RSL President Doug Ramsay said many of the men were not very tall.

“It was the height of them that stood out, they were all short-arses,” he said.