SWB, issuing & applying for.

[TEW]

I understand that soldiers had to apply for a SWB but I wonder if someone ie a NoK could do it for them? Or perhaps a CO or RAMC officer?

I just wonder how someone with mutism, complete retrograde amnesia, hysterical paralysis, universal anaesthesia, and contractures could have applied for a SWB when is was described as being like a 2 year old.

THIS MAN 20 seconds into film. Suffered like this from Feb 1916, film claims to be Feb 1917, although other clips are Autumn 1917. Either way the man had been discharged June 1916 and according to the SWB roll issued with his SWB by May 1917. Man is belived not to have made any signs of recovery until November 1917.

If the film is Nov 1917 then he would have received his SWB by the time he was filmed.

Any thoughts?

TEW

[Chris_Baker]

There is a very lengthy thread somewhere on GWF discussing whether the badges had to be claimed, or not.

[centurion]

There is a very lengthy thread somewhere on GWF discussing whether the badges had to be claimed, or not.

And no very definite agreement/conclusion was reached. It would seem that when men were being discharged from a discharge centre part of the paperwork they signed as part of the set of stuff they had to was an SWB application form if they were entitled so you could say in this case it was sort of semi automatic. However it was more problematic if they were discharged from a hospital as hospital staff don't seem to have been that well organised when it came to military bureaucracy so some may have had to apply later and there are other threads about such cases.. Men who qualified after discharge under one of the several changes to the rules would have to apply as would men who had been discharged sick/wounded before the SWB was instituted- so as Sam Goldwyn once said it's a definite maybe!

[TEW]

Still reading the lengthy post on the subject, assuming the dates in my OP are correct it would suggest the process for Pte. M was automatic. His service & pension records don't survive but other examples show that they certainly signed receipts for their SWBs. Surely, in the case of Pte. M as he was incapable of signing anything the OC I/C records at his depot would have been informed of his incapacity. He did receive a pension (inf. A Hurst Neurological studied Seale Hayne) although he can't have applied for it himself. Or was he granted it!!

He was still in hospital undergoing occupational therapy 2 years after being discharged.

TEW