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Remembered Today:

MEMORIAL PLAQUE REFERENCE NUMBERS


303man

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No such thing as a dumb question but there is many a dumb answer! On this topic, yes, I wondered if they were made in batches and so have casting numbers that match units, etc., but my dumbish answer is that I have no idea. There is bound to be somebody around though who can say whether or not the matter has been researched or not...

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7 hours ago, PRC said:

Dumb question alert!

 

How do the numbers that are on the memorial plaques relate back to the production numbers? Are they batch numbers? Has anyone looked into seeing whether there is any consistent linkage.

 

They are not batch numbers, but the number of the individual mould used to cast the plaque. This is why all genuine "She Died" memorial plaques have the have the number "11" stamped between the leg and tail. One mould, one (relatively) short production run, before being altered into an additional "He Died" mould (and I believe renumbered, though uncertain on that).

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1 hour ago, Andrew Upton said:

 

They are not batch numbers, but the number of the individual mould used to cast the plaque. This is why all genuine "She Died" memorial plaques have the have the number "11" stamped between the leg and tail. One mould, one (relatively) short production run, before being altered into an additional "He Died" mould (and I believe renumbered, though uncertain on that).

 

Interesting - so does anyone know if all the altered 'He Died' plaques made with mould 11 represent one country of origin or one group of regiments, etc.? Any idea if any of the paperwork related to their making survived?  

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You will need a large data set of all Narrow H plaques with mould ref No 11 and see if a pattern could be established. I have only 4 Plaques with mould 11 and 3 are wide H,  My 4th is a She died so entirely normal. Even the War Office Specimen She Died is Mould No 11.

War Office Pattern She - Copy.JPG

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On ‎13‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 18:13, Andrew Upton said:

 

They are not batch numbers, but the number of the individual mould used to cast the plaque. This is why all genuine "She Died" memorial plaques have the have the number "11" stamped between the leg and tail. One mould, one (relatively) short production run, before being altered into an additional "He Died" mould (and I believe renumbered, though uncertain on that).

 

Thanks Andrew

 

Not having seen one of these things I took it literally when several top hits on the google search tell me the number appears behind the back legs rather than a number.

 

So presumably we could have a scenario in which boxes of blank plaques come out of the press shop that have been prepared from multiple moulds and get passed to the engravers\etchers to add the name. In which case there may well be a mix of mould numbers used to supply any given batch of plaques that were subsequently issued.

 

Oh well, back to the drawing board :-)

 

regards,

Peter

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1 hour ago, PRC said:

and get passed to the engravers\etchers to add the name. 

Hi PRC

 

As far as I know the names were neither engraved nor etched. The name was in raised letters and formed part of the manufacture of each plaque. At no stage in the manufacturing process was there a plaque awaiting a name.

 

Dave

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17 hours ago, depaor01 said:

Hi PRC

 

As far as I know the names were neither engraved nor etched. The name was in raised letters and formed part of the manufacture of each plaque. At no stage in the manufacturing process was there a plaque awaiting a name.

 

Dave

 

Dave,

 

No reason to doubt what you say - just seems a very inefficient and labour intensive and costly way to produce such a significant number of items, (and probably explains why the whole exercise took so long! )

 

Any idea if its possible to tie one mould number to a specific bunch of plaques or could there be several on the go?

 

Thanks,

Peter

 

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18 hours ago, depaor01 said:

Hi PRC

 

As far as I know the names were neither engraved nor etched. The name was in raised letters and formed part of the manufacture of each plaque. At no stage in the manufacturing process was there a plaque awaiting a name.

 

Dave

Afraid yes they, were some very late issue New Zealand plaques were engraved as were some others. When full time production had stopped returned defective plaques with spelling mistakes etc had the name removed and were engraved.  

Engraved Plaque 1.JPG

Engraved plaque 2.jpg

Engraved plaque 3.JPG

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1 hour ago, 303man said:

Afraid yes they, were some very late issue New Zealand plaques were engraved as were some others. When full time production had stopped returned defective plaques with spelling mistakes etc had the name removed and were engraved.  

Engraved Plaque 1.JPG

Engraved plaque 2.jpg

Engraved plaque 3.JPG

Interesting examples. Thanks for the clarification. I think it's true to say though that in general the vast majority of plaque names were cast.

 

Dave

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Another New Zealand Plaque engraved, I expect there were only a few done like this.  The Main reason was New Zealand awarded plaques to those that died of wounds attributable much later than other nations and Plaque production had stopped.  Todd enlisted as George Wilson and the rules were the plaque was to be produced in the name the soldier enlisted as I expect his original plaque was returned and his Next of Kin requested one with his real name.

Geddes Todd.jpg

FL23848740.jpg

Edited by 303man
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Looking at the above examples, and particularly that of Todd, I am wondering how they removed the raised naming on a plaque before engraving it. I would have thought an emery wheel would have been the answer but from the underlying marks it seems to have been a cold chisel or similar. Rather a laborious way of doing it in quantity I would have thought.

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I think the engraved plaques may number in the low hundreds or less. As can be seen from Todds relative she requested his medals to be issued in his real name in 1920.   His original plaque was sent out in 1922 so that would have been named George Wilson as per the regulations,  it may be that this is his original plaque returned and renamed.

 

Edited by 303man
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Below is a sample from my collection all Wide H Memorial Plaques and with reference Number 10 inside the lions legs as you can see from this sample there is no matching dates etc and as I have previously stated a larger data set would be needed.

 

Plaques

Regiment Bty/Coy/Ship Died Died On Age Plate No In/Out W/N Cemetery

ESSEX REGIMENT 9 Bn KIA 03/07/1916 20 10 I W SERRE ROAD CEMETERY No.2

HMAS CERBERUS DIED 11/06/1920 0 10 I W WILLIAMSTOWN GENERAL CEMETERY                  

LONDON REGIMENT 16 Bn KIA 27/12/1917 0 10 I W JERUSALEM WAR CEMETERY, Israel                  

SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS 4 Bn KIA 20/11/1917 0 10 I N CAMBRAI MEMORIAL, LOUVERVAL

SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT 1/5 Bn DIED 12/10/1918 19 10 I W VIS-EN-ARTOIS MEMORIAL

SS ALGARVE     20/10/1917 0 10 I W TOWER HILL MEMORIAL

Edited by 303man
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  • 1 month later...

If anyone is thinking of doing a study, a picture of the envelope, plaque and associated paperwork has just been posted in this thread.

 

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On 8/13/2017 at 20:13, Andrew Upton said:

... This is why all genuine "She Died" memorial plaques have the have the number "11" stamped between the leg and tail. One mould, one (relatively) short production run, before being altered into an additional "He Died" mould (and I believe renumbered, though uncertain on that).

 

On 8/13/2017 at 21:30, trajan said:

... Interesting - so does anyone know if all the altered 'He Died' plaques made with mould 11 represent one country of origin or one group of regiments, etc.? Any idea if any of the paperwork related to their making survived?  

 

On 8/13/2017 at 23:44, 303man said:

You will need a large data set of all Narrow H plaques with mould ref No 11 and see if a pattern could be established. I have only 4 Plaques with mould 11 and 3 are wide H,  My 4th is a She died so entirely normal. Even the War Office Specimen She Died is Mould No 11.

 

On 8/17/2017 at 22:39, 303man said:

Below is a sample from my collection all Wide H Memorial Plaques and with reference Number 10 inside the lions legs as you can see from this sample there is no matching dates etc and as I have previously stated a larger data set would be needed.

 

303 Man, you clearly have built up a collection and some elevated level of knowledge on these things - but am I missing something here? This last post of yours mentions 'Wide H's' as being mould number 10's, but I thought that the original 'She' was always a mould number 11?

 

Julian

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You have in the following variations:

 

Acton plaques Wide H  No Plate number at all.

Acton Plaques Wide H Plate number stamped outside the lions rear leg (Plate numbers run 1 - 50)

Acton Plaques Wide H Plate number stamped outside the lions rear leg (plate numbers run 1 - 50) WA Monogramme on the reverse made at Acton before it closed but taken to Woolwich and stamped WA on the reverse and dispatched.

Woolwich Plaques Wide H (Plate No 1 - 99 inside the loins rear legs) WA monogramme on the reverse

Woolwich plaques Narrow H (plate No 1 - 99 inside the lions rear leg and tail) WA Monogramme on the reverse.

Woolwich Plaques She Died (All plate No 11) WA on the reverse.

 

My point in the previous post is unless you have a massive data set of one type of plaque and identical plate numbers you can not find a pattern of either Regiments or dates of death, I am convinced the lists came in and they were bashed out.  The moulds were on a table like a lazy Susan possibly 25 plaques per table with the mould numbers 1 -25 then table 2 moulds 26 - 50 then when production was increased at Woolwich 4 tables. I may be wrong it could be 10 plaques per moulding table but you get the idea.

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15 hours ago, 303man said:

You have in the following variations: ...

 

 

Thanks - I am not a collector of these - I just have the one - but the archaeologist in me sees this as an interesting point of research!

 

 

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