George Henry Dawe

This is a really interesting story which threw up several surprises along the way. 

My part started recently when my colleague Nick B showed me a WWI pair of medal awarded to 4481 CPL George Henry Dawe. George was originally allocated to 5th Battalion, then reallocated to 46th Battalion before ending up in 4th Division HQ. Nick had already established that George was mentioned in dispatches and here is a citation.

George was 32 when he enlisted and his father was his next of kin. This made me wonder if he ever married. I'll come back to that because the first post war information I found about George was when he gave evidence against a Victorian MRH.

One other article about this case mentioned that George was an actor which led to a whole lot of new search parameters and results. This time I found two articles in The Bulletin about George. The first about being an actor in London before WWI.

The second is about his death in 1924 aged 44. It also confirmed that he did marry.

George's widow was Eleanor, better known as Lala. They had married in 1921. Lala's first husband was KIA during WWI. This information led me to George's grave. George's family were monumental masons which might explain the grandeur of the family headstone. George also worked as a monumental mason when acting jobs were scarce.

Knowing that George didn't have a direct descendant led me to look at his wider family. Other names on the grave gave me the information that I needed. George's brother Frederick also served in WWI with 2nd Field Company Engineers. The family line I was able to follow was through Fred's eldest daughter and onto her oldest son. This is Bob G who is George's great nephew.

I've now connected Nick and Bob and will post photos of the medals in the near future. The returned medal tally is now 2605.
 

 

 

John Cadger

This is another search that I've revisited many times over the years. Every now and then there has been a snippet of information that finally led to me being able to return this medal to the family. There is very little to tell about John Cadger other than he was in the 7th Battalion of the Scottish Rifles. I took many hours of research time to get almost nowhere. Having it finalised is very satisfying.

Thanks to Liz J who sent John's medals to me and to Sue P who put the final piece in place. The returned medal tally is now 2603.

Henry Payne

This return has been 13 years in the making and finalised on the barest of information. 

I received the 1914-15 Star awarded to SS-17784 Henry Payne in 2007 and it took several revisits to the records to draw everything together. Henry was a soldier in the British Army Service Corps and it was considerably lucky that his pension record is available on line. Henry was discharged from the Army in 1916 due to being medically unfit. I was a bit surprised by this until I worked out that Henry was born in 1867 making him 47 when he enlisted. In 1911 Henry was living with his 88 year old widowed mother and four siblings so I made an assumption that he didn't marry or have children. 

I found Henry in an Ancestry family tree and sent a message to the tree owner. Overnight received I received a reply from the tree owned who is the great grand daughter of Henry's sister Ellen.

Thank you to Glenda R who sent me the medal via Charlie E.

The returned medal tally is now 2601.

I forgot to take a picture of the reverse f the medal. An update will come soon.
 

Francis Nunn

Other than the WWII DVA nominal roll entry for WX10318 Francis Herbert Nunn, I found no other Australian records for this soldier. This was a very frustrating search that commenced in 2013. I was only thanks to snippets of information that appeared on genealogy website over several years that helped me piece together Francis' family tree. After Francis discharge in 1944 I found no more information about his.

What I did know was when and where Francis was born. His place of birth was Steeple Bumpstead, Essex, UK. His siblings were William, Gladys and Eric. This information led me to Ben who is the great great  grandson of Francis' sister Gladys. Francis was the only member of his family who emigrated to Australia so these medals will be sent to England where his family remained.

Thanks to Garry G who sent me these medals in 2013. The returned medal tally is now 2600.

  

William Watkin

When I first received information about this medal from Ivan of the NSW RSL I was confused by the naming: J.85452 (DEV.B.10850) W. WATKIN. SIG. RFR. I hadn't seen the medal at this point and even though I suspected that the 'J' at the beginning of the service number meant Royal Navy, the inclusion of RFR made me wonder if this was a Royal Fusiliers medal. 

Ancestry gave me no clues but the UK National Archives confirmed that W Watkin was William Watkin who served in both WWI and WWII in the Royal Fleet Reserve. Now RFR made sense. Knowing the full name opened the flood gates of information. William was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1901. He married Ida Etchells and died, also in Sheffield, in 1992. William and Ida has two sons: John 'Jack' Watkin and William 'Bill' Watkin.  

In 1948 Bill emigrated to Australia. On the ship he met Bridget Gannon and they married in 1949. Bill worked as a bricklayer and lived in Mt Pleasant, Western Australia. The 1977 electoral roll gave me the name of Bill and Bridget's daughter. Bill died in Fremantle as did Bridget, however, I was surprised to see that Bridget was cremated in North Ryde, NSW. That might have explained how the medal was found in Redfern by the NSW Police. 

When the medal arrived I recogised it as the Reserve Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. The ribbon, as seen in the pictures, represents the Royal Fleet Reserve. 

Once I had all the information I found a Watkin family tree on Ancestry. The tree owner kindly provided me with Bill's daughter's contact details. Now all that remains to to send William Watkin's medal to his granddaughter.

Thanks to Ivan for sending me the medal and John W for his assistance in this search. The returned medal tally is now 2596.

'Snow' Allinson

The WWI Victory Medal awarded to 4899 Leonard Thomas 'Snow' Allinson was sent to me by Ingrid in June 2020. The first thing I found online was a picture of Snow as a toddler. Snow was born in 1894 so this photo is probably from 1896.

Snow served in the 53rd Battalion, AIF. After WWI he married Marge Marshall and died in 1942. They didn't have any children so I turned my attentions to Snow's siblings. Through his sister Doris' family line, I identified Karen who was the great niece of Snow. While I had the names of Karen's parents I didn't know her married name. I hit a brick wall at this point so set the search aside.

Last weekend I rid a refresh of several searches including the Allinson search. I found an Ancestry tree which included Snow's sister Doris. The tree owner , Neil H, kindly provided my Karen's email address so I fired off a message to her.

Yesterday, I had a lovely call from Karen and she was able to put all the pieces together for me. Karen also tells me that has a granddaughter who is very interested in her family military history. Snow's Victory Medal will soon be returned to Karen and her family.

Thank you to Ingrid and Neil for the roles they played in this return. The returned medal tally is now 2595.

    

AC Dawson

When I first started researching VX36870 Albert Cyril Dawson in May 2020, I quickly found all the basic information about him, his wife and daughters. Then I got to the mid 1970s and the information all dried up. I set the medals aside in the hope that a fresh look in the future would bring up something new.

Over the weekend I took another look at Albert and sure enough I found a tree on Ancestry which it turns out is owned by Albert's grand daughter. Sian tells me that two of Albert's four medals are in the custody of her grand mother and the other two were with another relative, or so they thought. These were the two medal that I had. At some point the two medals were handed in to the RAAF Museum in Victoria and then sent to me. 

It is very pleasing that not only are these medals being returned to the family but also they are being reunited with the rest of Albert's medal group.    

Thanks to David G for sending me the medals. The returned medal tally is now 2594.