Victory Medal - Did Gilbert ever get his?

Maisie · Post by **Maisie** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:33 pm

A wee bit off the subject but only yesterday my Mum and I were looking through some things she's rescued from the loft when the men came to do her free insulation. She had a box with her father's WW1 medals, my paternal grandfather's WW1 medals and my father's WW11 medals. In the bottom of the box we found a Punjab campaign medal from 1898 inscribed with the name and number of a soldier I had flagged up as a possible match for a gg-uncle who disappeared off the face of the earth. So now I know they are one and the same and he died in India in 1899. Another little mystery solved, only about 1001 to go.

Maisie

Post by **emanday** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:18 pm

What a wonderful find.

Those are the kind of family history treasures we'd all love to uncover.

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:05 am

Here’s a bit more I came across somewhere on this page http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forum ... 1778&st=25

“The WWI campaign medals were sent out by Special Delivery (Registered Mail) to either the soldier's home address, or to the person named in his will (if he completed it in his pay book), or the address of the next of kin as recorded on his service papers and had to be signed for and the receipt sent back. If they were returned it is usually noted on the medal index card and definitely on the medal roll. No comments means that they were issued correctly. Officers had to claim their medals, if there is a MIC then they claimed and the medals listed were issued.”

The Australian situation is interesting in that next-of-kin had no particular rights unless medals were specifically mentioned in a soldier’s will. Medals were handed over in the following order of relationship:

Widow, eldest surviving son, eldest surviving daughter, father, mother, eldest surviving brother, eldest surviving sister, eldest surviving half-brother, eldest surviving half-sister.

One Australian case I saw a brother couldn’t be located and the medals were issued to a sister but she had to sign a Statutory Declaration that she would return the medals should anyone with prior rights lodge a claim.

Alan

Post by **emanday** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 2:05 pm

Currie wrote:“The WWI campaign medals were sent out by Special Delivery (Registered Mail) to either the soldier's home address, or to the person named in his will (if he completed it in his pay book), or the address of the next of kin as recorded on his service papers and had to be signed for and the receipt sent back. If they were returned it is usually noted on the medal index card and definitely on the medal roll. No comments means that they were issued correctly. Officers had to claim their medals, if there is a MIC then they claimed and the medals listed were issued.”

Oh, dear! It's beginning to look as though a suspicion voiced by my son-in-law's Grandmother might very well carry some weight after all, that being that his widow threw out a lot of Gilbert's stuff when she remarried 10 years after his death.