FS Harding

The service record of 1151 Frank Stanley Harding shows that Frank had a reasonably straight forward period of service between March 1915 and August 1919. Page 19 of the service record is a synopsis of his war years with one entry that sticks out; he went AWOL in Cairo. Having read many other records, I think Frank could have got in a lot more trouble than other soldiers. For being AWOL, he was awarded 7 days field punishment number 2 and 10 days loss of pay. Frank was a signaller and served in 2nd Division and 4th Division Signal Company. 

This collection is rather interesting. Frank was awarded the WWI trio but I only received the British War Medal. Included, is the Anzac Gallipoli Medallion and lapel pin. The really interesting bit is that Frank's letter to the Department of Defence applying for this medallion is also in the service record.

I didn't find much information about Frank's other than his headstone and his name on an Ancestry family tree. I fired of a message to the tree owner and today I received a reply from Frank's great granddaughter. This is Mandy and I'll send her this collection later this week.

These are, of course, more items from the RSL Care SA bag. The returned medal tally is now 2722.

WM Bowels

The British War Medal awarded to 2624 Sapper William Morrison Bowels seemed unremarkable when it was first sent to me by Peter M. That was until I saw the unit which is impressed after his name. It says RLY UNIT. I think this is the first Railway Unit medal that I've dealt with.

When he enlisted in 1917, William was allocated to the 2nd Light Railway Operating Company. This is most likely because he was a fitter by trade. The Virtual War Memorial web site provides the following description of the unit:

Formed in Australia in January 1917 as the 5th Section, Australian Railway Troops and arrived in England on 21 July 1917. July 1917 it was redesignated to 16th Light Railway Operating Company and arrived France on 4 October 1917 where on 28 February1918 it was renumbered as 2nd Light Railway Operating Company.

The raising of these units coincided with the implementation of a battlefield rail strategy across British and Commonwealth Areas of Operations.  The widespread use of battlefield rail, particularly the narrow gauge rail network transformed supply, personnel movement and casualty evacuation.

The Light Railway Companies were operated by the Engineers and came into existence when it became clear that the maintenance of roads was becoming a severe problem, in terms of the manpower needed and enormous quantities of road stone clogging up the supply routes. In February 1916 the first new light railways were sanctioned.

I very quickly found William on an Ancestry tree and a message to the owner and confirmed a direct connection to William.

Thanks to Lee-Anne for the connection and to Peter who sent me the medal. The returned medal tally is now 2677.

John Willie Clarke

I often reflect on the randomness of how medals end up with me when their journey started on the other side of the world.

This WWI British War Medal was awarded to 1918 Private J W Clarke, West Yorkshire Regiment. Based on the unit I knew he was a British soldier. However, it took a while to narrow down this soldier's full name. Using the regimental number of 1918 didn't result in any search success. I do know that as the size of the British Army grew as the war progressed, units changed their numbering systems to allow for the addition of battalions to regimental organisations, death rates and movement of individuals. It is not uncommon to see a soldier with several regimental numbers. 

The primary source to check these regimental numbers and medal entitlement are the British Army medal cards which are held in the British National Archives. These cards are accessed via the NA website on a pay per access basis or through a third party like Ancestry. The search parameters I had to work with was this soldier's initials and surname. It turned out that there were several dozen soldiers with the name J W Clarke so I went through every card individually. These cards were all filled out by hand but I eventually found the correct card with the number 1918 written on it. This card also noted another regimental number which was 240361. From there I was able to determine that J W Clarke was killed in action on 1 March 1918. However, I still didn't know what the initials J W stood for.

It took a bit of reverse engineering research that started with the date of death that finally led me to work out that J W stood for John Willie. That was the clue that led me from Bradford, Yorkshire to Port Lincoln, South Australia. John and his wife Lena had a son in 1916. This was Herbert Clarke. I followed Herbert through immigration, electoral and death records. When Herbert moved to South Australia he obviously had his father's medals with him. That answered the question of how the medal travelled from Bradford to Port Lincoln. The final pieces of information about Herbert came from his headstone.

This led me back to Ancestry and I found Herbert on a tree owned by Deidre S. I fired off messages and emails and yesterday Deidre called to confirm all this research. How the medal left the Clarke family and ended up with Johny who sent me the medal renmains a mystery.

The returned medal tally is now 2649.

C Ferguson and C Wood

When I receive medals that come in the same parcel but with different names I try not make an immediate assumption the soldiers are connected in some way. However, when there is a connection it usually tells a story that I wasn't expecting.

In May 2020 I received four medals in the post from Margaret of South Australia. One was a British War Medal awarded to 3328 Charles Ferguson. Two others were a British War Medal and Victory Medal pair awarded to 13455 Charles Herbert Carbert Woods. The forth medal in the parcel was a bit of a surprise. It was a German Iron Cross dated 1914. Also with the medals was the original box of issue for Charles Ferguson's medals. 

I first started searching Charles Ferguson as he was killed in action on 12 October 1917. Charles was member of the 48th Battalion, AIF. With a date of death in October 1917 I surmised that Charles was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele. Charles has no known grave and is commemorated at Menin Gate. Charles service record contains several emotive letters from his father, John, seeking information about Charles possessions. John was of the opinion that Charles' possessions were stolen by other soldiers. This could not be proved but caused John much distress.

Charles' mother was Mary and I found her death notice on Trove. This gave me several leads about Charles' siblings. He had two sisters; Anne Maude and Lillian Chester. He also had a brother; Sydney John. 

I then turned to Charles Wood and saw that his next of kin was his wife; Lillian Chester Wood. Charles Wood and Charles Ferguson were brothers in law. Charles Wood was a Motor Transport Driver in the Auxiliary Mechanical Transport Company. Charles Wood's civilian occupation was as a Motor Transport Proprietor.

I found very little information about either of these families other than through Sydney Ferguson and it is his family that I'll return the medals to.

The returned medal tally is now 2641.   

 

William Cousins

This return benefited from a combination of an uncommon surname and a regional town making narrowing down the family I was looking for relativity easy. 
This British War Medal was awarded to 2125 William Stanley Cousins. He is listed as being posted to 1st Battalion, AIF as well as 1st Australian Light Railway Operating Company. It would have been interesting to see the medal named to a railway unit. 
I received the medal the other day and it took a little while to work out that after WWI, William married but was divorced not long after. They didn't have any children. There weren't many public records available other than a few electoral roll entries. However, the search opened up once I found his funeral notice which I've added below. The key was the name of William's sister, Mrs R Leslight. This turned out to be Dorothy Leslight, nee Cousins. This information aligned with a letter from Dorothy to the Army in 1968 applying for the Anzac Medallion. The letter also stated that Dorothy was William's next of kin.William had died in 1948.
Dorothy lived in Murwillumbah and a quick check of her surname and this town in the White Pages led me to the correct family. As it turns out the family member I spoke to has, over the years, collected up other medals awarded to members of this family. Now William's BWM will be added to the collection.     
William's nickname was Nugget, I wonder why?
Thanks to Christopher W who sent me the medal.
The returned medal tally is now 2480.

WWI Royal Artillery KIA

Searches involving medals awarded to British soldiers can be a little problematic. The main issue is the lack of service records available online. Many were lost during WWII as a result of the Blitz.
When a service record is accessible, the search becomes so much easier. These records contain the name of the next of kin, their address as well as the names of any children. This provides a great starting point. This particular search benefited from having a complete service record available.
My part in the travels of this British War Medal commenced with the arrival of a package from the Directorate of Honours and Awards. The Honours and Awards staff had received three WWI medals from the NSW Police Liverpool station but where they came from before that is unknown to me. One of the medals is the BWM awarded to 103269 Gunner Albert Stanley Christian, Royal Garrison Artillery.
From Albert's service record I knew that he was a 31 year old drapers assistant from Lancaster, UK. His wife was Harriet (nee Hudson) and their son was Cyril. Albert enlisted on 10 July 1916 and was a gunner in the 2/3rd Siege Battery. Albert was killed in action in France on 28 April 1917. He is buried in Henin Communal Cemetery Extension.

Not only did this search get off to a great start with access to Albert's service record but he is also included in many Ancestry family trees. 30 minutes after I started looking for Albert, I was looking at a picture of his wedding to Harriet in 1910.

This is the full wedding party.

One of the Ancestry family trees appeared to be owned by Albert's grandson so I fired off a message. Overnight I've heard back from John and sure enough I have the right family.
How this medal traveled from Lancaster, UK to Liverpool, NSW is a mystery. A reverse journey will now occur when I send this medal back to John in Lancaster.
The returned medal tally is now 2474.

Henry Cecil Beauchamp

This return is a cracking story, much of the research has been put together by others and I'm very grateful that it landed with me to put the last piece in to the puzzle and locate the family. It is also a pretty complicated story so I'll try to be succinct.
My part in this epic began recently when I received an email from Murry M telling me that over the years he had obtained several medals awarded to members of the Remount Units. The Remount Units were pretty interesting in their own right. In order to free up Light Horse troopers who were left in Egypt while the majority of the regiments were fighting at Gallipoli, the Remount Units were raised. There were two units each of four squadrons. The enlistment age for a remount soldier was raised 50 and they were drawn from Boer War veterans or men who had experience handling horses. Following the withdrawal from Gallipoli the remount soldiers were used to deliver horses to Palestine and Syria.
Murray's interest in Remounts was due to a member of his own family having served in the same unit.

These are the medals that Murray sent me along with a substantial amount of research.

The first soldier I looked at was 1211 Henry Cecil Beauchamp. Henry's WWI AIF service record was easy to locate on the National Archives of Australia website but from it many questions came out. Firstly, his attestation paper says that he served in the 21st Lancers, a British unit. This explains the experience that Henry had to be a remount soldier as well and being aged 48. Later in the service record there is a letter (page5), dated 1967, from his daughter applying for the Anzac Commemorative Medallion. This was presented to soldiers who had served at Gallipoli. In this letter Henry's daughter states that her father had served at Omdurman (in present day Sudan), South Africa, India (with Sir Winston Churchill) and in WWI, including having gone to Gallipoli. The letter is annotated with the letters NE which stands of Not Entitled. Henry did not go to Gallipoli and I wonder if he embellished his record a bit despite his extensive service. This question comes up again in later research.
Two more interesting pieces of information that came out of his daughter's letter. She stated that prior to enlistment in the AIF they lived at Duntroon and that Henry's Long Service and Good Conduct Medal had been stolen at some time. The mention of Duntroon interested me and I found a link that confirmed that Henry worked as a civilian groom at RMC.
I found that Henry died in 1929 but it was his wife's death notice that helped me move forward. However, looking back at Henry's life made things a bit more complicated. Henry was know at a point in time as Henry Cecil Strickland de Beauchamps, Henry Cecil de Beauchamps, Leonard Hudson and Henry Cecil Beauchamp.
On 1 February 1886, aged 18 years and 7 months, Henry enlisted in the Royal Marines and was assigned to Depot Battalion. Not long after that, on 22 June 1886, he enlisted in the 21st Hussars under the name Leonard Hudson. Luckily, these British service records are available unlike meany that have been destroyed. There is a note on one page to say that Leonard's alias was Henry Cecil Beauchamp and a comment from his Commanding Officer that says:

'Claimed the benefit of the Queen's Pardon having confessed to having fraudulently 

enlisted into the 21st Hussars whilst belonging to the Royal Marine Light Infantry'.

This entry is undated but he continued to serve at the following locations:
Home (UK) 17 June 1886 to 21 November 1887
East Indies 22 November 1887 to 23 April 1894
Home (UK) 24 April 1894 to 16 June 1898.
No mention is made of serving in Africa and with a discharge date of June 1898 he missed the Battle of Omdurman by three months as it occurred in September 1898.
Henry re-enlisted on 23 April 1900 in to the 21st Lancers and served through to 10 February 1909 when he discharged with the rank of Sergeant. He qualified for his Long Service and Good Conduct medal in 1907. There is no mention that he served in South Africa.

This is Henry in his Lancers uniform. 

(Reproduced with kind permission of his family)

It is not clear exactly when Henry moved to Australia. It must have been about 1911. He would have been in his mid 40s. It was Henry's wife death notice that gave me the information I needed to move forward. In total they had 8 children, some who also emigrated while others stayed in the UK. 

Their eldest son was Harry Cecil Beauchamp. Harry's son served in the RAAF during WWII. This was FSGT Warwick Melville Beauchamp.

Warwick died on 19 April 1944 when his Liberator aircraft crashed while taking off at Sigiriva for an attack on an enemy convoy. Warwick is buried at Liveramentu Cemetery, Columbo. Warwick is mention in the 2014 Anzac Day address that was given of the HE Robyn Mudie, the Australian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. The following photos are of Warwick's headstone and the funeral of Warwick and his crew mates.

The family that I followed was that of one of Henry's daughters, Evelyn. It is her grand son, Brendan who I recently contacted and will send Henry's medal to. Henry served in the AIF from October 1915 to June 1916. For this service he was awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. It is the British War Medal what will be returned to his family. Where his other medals are is an interesting question. I also wonder what medals he was actually awarded in addition to the confirmed Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

Murry is to be congratulated on the research he did prior to handing over everything to me. I'm just so pleased to be able to have quickly located Henry's great grandson.

The returned medal tally is now 2360.

Walter Speechly

The incorrect spelling of a name and two regimental numbers really complicated this search.
It all started in September 2017 when I received three sets of medals from Stuart H. All three searches are now resolved.
What caused the confusion was that Walter Charles Speechly often had his surname spelt Speechley. Even on the original service record Walter has manuscript amended the spelling in his own hand and crossed out the last 'e'. This error continued all though his records and even on his medals. The naming on the 1914-15 Star is different to the BWM and Victory Medal. To top this off Walter had the regimental numbers of 1208 and 1330.
Having all three WWI medals, especially when not mounted in one group, is rather exciting. It looks like they were pinned on to a jacket with safety pins (we all know what Bill's opinion about safety pins is). Walter was at Gallipoli and was wounded in action on 22 May 1915 when he received a gun shot wound to the left thigh. He was later wounded in action a second time in August 1916. This time a gun shot wound to his right leg.
Walter was pretty difficult to follow through the records, the search had to be doubled to cover both spellings. I couldn't find any evidence of him having children so my search extended to this siblings. This lead me to an Ancestry family tree which included Walter's sister Christine. The tree owner in Walter's great nephew, Michael. He has an interesting story of his own. Michael was originally from the UK but 35 years ago moved to Connecticut, USA. His interest in his family history has uncovered several times removed grandparents buried in the same area which he never knew about prior to starting his own research. Michael's interest in this family makes him the ideal person to receive Walter's medals.
The returned medal tally is now 2340.   

 

 

 

Eric Fry MM

One of the surprises that I found in the Grafton Box was a Military Medal awarded to SJT Eric Rosewarne Fry. I thought that with that name the search would be on the easy side; how wrong was I?
Eric's WWI British medal card threw up all sort of complications. Firstly, Eric was a Sapper in the Divisional Engineers, 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. His number was originally 149 but later changed to 207416. At some point Eric was reallocated to the Royal Engineers and awarded the Military Medal. I couldn't find the award citation or the date of the action but the London Gazette date is 22 Feb18.
Later in 1918 Eric was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Reserve Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. The medal card indicates that Eric was also awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
Then the search got difficult.
Eric was 24 when the war ended and at some point he married May Dickerson Foster. Eric died on 12 May 1957.
May remarried, this time to a US citizen, Carroll Milan. After that there was a gap of about 40 years in the records until, very much to my surprise, I discovered that May died in Sydney on 15 Oct 98. At least that explained how Eric's MM turned up in Australia.
My search then focused on Eric's brother Donald Bernard Fry. Though a tree I found on Ancestry I've been able to have a messaged passed to one of Donald's daughters and I'll soon send Eric's MM back to the UK. Nigel D from Chatham, Kent has been very helpful in this search and will also be the go between to return the medal.
The returned medal tally is now 2281

John Burrell

I'm slowly getting through the medals recently sent to me by the Grafton RSL. This latest return is of a British War Medal awarded to 15156 MT-DVR John Franklin Burrell. MT-DVR stands for Motor Transport Driver and is a rank equivalent to private. His unit was the 5th Motor Transport Company, Australian Army Service Corps.
Following John through the electoral rolls was easy and other public records provided me with the names of his children and grandchildren. These records are mostly 40+ years old so I had to turn to a more contemporary resource and found John's granddaughter using Face Book. We have exchanged messages and I'll be posting John's BWM off in the near future.
The returned medal tally is now 2271.

Patrick Fendlen

The search for 4907 Patrick James Fendlen of the 53rd Battalion, AIF, started with an email from Terry M who had come across Patrick's British War Medal amongst his father's WWII medals.
The search for Patrick was some what difficult as his name was sometimes spelt with an 'i' in place of the second 'e'. Once I worked out that he lied about his age to enlist the pieces started to fall in to place.
He was born in 1870 making him 44 when he enlisted but stated his age as 34. He was married to Rachel but this was her second marriage and she already had four children. Rachel died while Patrick was still serving in France although he was returned to Australia for health reasons not long after.
In Patrick's service record there is a letter from his brother saying that there was no children from the marriage to Rachel and I couldn't find any connection between Patrick and Rachel's children after she died.
Patrick later married Mary Sayer, however, that marriage didn't last long as in 1920 a warrant was issued for Patrick's arrest for the desertion of Mary. The warrant gave his age as 54 which verified my calculations about him lying about  his age on enlistment. Patrick spent time in Darlinghurst prison and died in 1937. 
I've tracked down a distant relative who is also the family historian and he will hold the medal until a closer relative is found if this is possible.
It was great to connect Terry and Wayne about Patrick's medal and provide them both with addition details about Patrick. Although, how his medal came in to Terry's father's possession remains a mystery.
The returned medal tally is now 2236.