Frederick Hamilton Ralls - Honours - Help Please

[tomralls]

Hi there,

 

New to this forum - i am trying to find out information on a relative of mine - I can see that he was awarded Victory / British / Star, but wondered if anyone knew what the other notes relate to on his documentation?

 

I have a selection of his medals, some are his brothers and one has another soldiers name on it (!)

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Tom

 

Edited 8 February , 2018 by tomralls

[MaxD]

oohe London Gazette entry is for the award of a Bar to the Military Cross he had already been awarded in 1917.  The various notes on his medal card show he started out as a private soldier in the 1/9 London Regiment with the number 2597.  Then  was commissioned having reached the rank of Sgt into the same battalion on 19 Oct 1916.  He first went to France on 4 November 1914.  In 1917 he applied through his brigade for the award of the 1914 Star which the date of his entry to France entitled him, I'll look for the medal roll for that medal (they were separate).  One entry is unclear. His medal card has "SWB" South Wales Borderers implying his spent some time with that regiment although when he died he was still noted as belonging to the 9th London.

Another record you don't have is the London Gazette entry for the first MC award which is here https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/30340/supplement/10711

 

Do you access to Ancestry ?  The 1914 Star roll is here: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/5119/41803_611411_5871-00375?pid=5915890&backurl=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DJdV1780%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26gss%3Dangs-c%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26msT%3D1%26gsfn%3Df%20h%26gsfn_x%3D0%26gsln%3Dralls%26gsln_x%3D0%26cpxt%3D1%26cp%3D4%26MSAV%3D1%26uidh%3D6x5%26pcat%3DMIL_AWARDS%26h%3D5915890%26recoff%3D4%205%206%26dbid%3D5119%26indiv%3D1%26ml_rpos%3D2&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=JdV1780&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true

 

Hopefully you can link the above with bits of the records .  The remainder are all administrative hieroglyphics relating to issues and receipts and can safely be ignored.

 

Looks like a fine record, you may wish to apply for his service record.

 

Max

What is the name on the wring medal?  

 

Max

Edited 8 February , 2018 by MaxD
Spelling!

[MaxD]

Further.  The war diary of 9 London records on 24 August 1918:

"Capt FH Ralls MC was killed during the afternoon, going round the posts with the CO.  Casualties up to this point had been about 150 ORs and 5 officers"  The action was the Battle of Albert.

 

Maxc

[MaxD]

The area in which the battalion were fighting that day is on the linked side by side maps stretching from Happy Valley in the top right of the map down to the bottom left:

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14&lat=49.9444&lon=2.6749&layers=101465314&right=BingHyb

 

Max

[clk]

Hi Tom,

 

If you don't already have them, the annotated citations for his MC and Bar are:

 

 

       

Image sources: The National Archives - files WO 389/5 and WO 389/7

 

Regards

Chris

 

 

 

[MaxD]

The London Gazette issue 30340 of 18 October 1917 I cited earlier for his first MC was simply the announcement of the award.  The description of the circumstances of the award was not published until March 1918 and is here :https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Edinburgh/issue/13220/page/944

[MaxD]

Crossed in the post with Chris's post above, useful that the location of the action has been pencilled in on them, I was going cross eyed trying to find them in the war diaries!  The second action is fairly comprehensively described in the diary for that period.

 

Max

[tomralls]

Max: Thank you so much for all of your input - I'm amazed at the speed of the information (!) I do have ancestry so will look into the star award in more detail as you suggest.

 

How do you apply for someones service record? Sorry for the simple question, this is not my area!
 

The Victory medal I have has "443233 PTE G. R. W. DICKINSON 27-CAN. INF" on the side, which is odd as he was awarded this medal - so must of been mixed up at some stage. It has no family connection to me. 

 

He has a cross military cross medal, but this has no inscription? 

 

The others show his name around the edge.

 

Thanks again for your help - really is appreciated!!

 

Chris: Thanks very much for the post - I don't have the annotated versions - much appreciated, more pieces to the puzzle (!

 

Thanks again 

Edited 8 February , 2018 by tomralls

[tomralls]

Just checked the star records - his brother Wyndham Stone Terrett Ralls (Had his initials wrong in the document so has been penned over!) has the previous sequential service number 2596 

[ss002d6252]

32 minutes ago, tomralls said:

Max: Thank you so much for all of your input - I'm amazed at the speed of the information (!) I do have ancestry so will look into the star award in more detail as you suggest.

 

How do you apply for someones service record? Sorry for the simple question, this is not my area!
 

The Victory medal I have has "443233 PTE G. R. W. DICKINSON 27-CAN. INF" on the side, which is odd as he was awarded this medal - so must of been mixed up at some stage. It has no family connection to me. 

 

He has a cross military cross medal, but this has no inscription? 

 

The others show his name around the edge.

 

Thanks again for your help - really is appreciated!!

 

Chris: Thanks very much for the post - I don't have the annotated versions - much appreciated, more pieces to the puzzle (!

 

Thanks again 

Dikcinson's records are here - http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=354854 - if you haven't already seen them.

From what I've just read the name was not  engraved on a MC unless you had it done yourself.

Craig

Edited 8 February , 2018 by ss002d6252

[tomralls]

2 minutes ago, ss002d6252 said:

Dikcinson's records are here - http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=354854 - if you haven't already seen them.

Craig

 

Thanks Craig ! I hadn't seen them - so odd that his medal ended up with us - i will try and find a connection between the family but think this unlikely. The surnames aren't event close, so unsure how a mix up would of occurred !!

 

We don't have another Victory medal - so the 'Ralls' one is out there somewhere 

[MaxD]

A pleasure.  His record is held by the National Archives at http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C726178

The NA copying service is not cheap see their guide at 

http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/summary-of-costs-april-2017.pdf

The process starts with a page check at £8.40 they then give you an estimate at £1.30 a sheet so a 100 page record (not unusual for an officer commissioned from the ranks) would cost £138.40.  There are other services that do the job for much less.  I suggest you Google "War diaries copy service" and contact one or two like ARCRE for example.  Their system is for you to give an upper limit, dilemma always is that you don't know how many sheets a file contains.

His full campaign medal entitlement would be the 1914 Star, usually inscribed on the back, the British War and the Victory medals engraved round the edge.  Compare them at http://www.greatwar.co.uk/medals/ww1-campaign-medals.htm    He also of course would have the Military Cross  here http://www.greatwar.co.uk/medals/ww1-gallantry-awards.htm#MC

the ribbon would have a slender bar across it for his second award.  These were not engraved.

The  other medal belongs to Guy Richard Wostenholme Dickinson born in Harrogate in 1876 who joined the Canadian Infantry in Vernon British Columbia on 15 July 1915.  His next of kin was a Mr JW Dickinson at 6 Morton Street Oxford.  He arrived in England in November 1915, went to France in April 1916 with the 27th Canadian Infantry and was killed in action on 16 November 1917.  The medal would not have been issued until 1920 or so, is there a possibility that there is some family connection?

 

Do you have access to Ancestry for the war diaries?  If not then you can download them from the National Archives for £3.50 each (there are two) the first two here http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_cr=WO&_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_q=(1%2F9+AND+london)+AND+"diaries"

 

From the diaries I can send a couple of side by side maps showing where the actions for which he was decorated took place, in due course.

 

Max

[tomralls]

18 minutes ago, MaxD said:

A pleasure.  His record is held by the National Archives at http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C726178

The NA copying service is not cheap see their guide at 

http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/summary-of-costs-april-2017.pdf

The process starts with a page check at £8.40 they then give you an estimate at £1.30 a sheet so a 100 page record (not unusual for an officer commissioned from the ranks) would cost £138.40.  There are other services that do the job for much less.  I suggest you Google "War diaries copy service" and contact one or two like ARCRE for example.  Their system is for you to give an upper limit, dilemma always is that you don't know how many sheets a file contains.

His full campaign medal entitlement would be the 1914 Star, usually inscribed on the back, the British War and the Victory medals engraved round the edge.  Compare them at http://www.greatwar.co.uk/medals/ww1-campaign-medals.htm    He also of course would have the Military Cross  here http://www.greatwar.co.uk/medals/ww1-gallantry-awards.htm#MC

the ribbon would have a slender bar across it for his second award.  These were not engraved.

The  other medal belongs to Guy Richard Wostenholme Dickinson born in Harrogate in 1876 who joined the Canadian Infantry in Vernon British Columbia on 15 July 1915.  His next of kin was a Mr JW Dickinson at 6 Morton Street Oxford.  He arrived in England in November 1915, went to France in April 1916 with the 27th Canadian Infantry and was killed in action on 16 November 1917.  The medal would not have been issued until 1920 or so, is there a possibility that there is some family connection?

 

Do you have access to Ancestry for the war diaries?  If not then you can download them from the National Archives for £3.50 each (there are two) the first two here http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_cr=WO&_dss=range&_ro=any&_p=1900&_q=(1%2F9+AND+london)+AND+"diaries"

 

From the diaries I can send a couple of side by side maps showing where the actions for which he was decorated took place, in due course.

 

Max

 

I have requested a page check from the NA for £8.40 - will reserve judgment until they revert !! may be a costly exercise...

 

I have his military cross - but it does not have a bar across this ribbon? It does however have a small rosette / rose pinned to it - not sure what that means.

 

The Ralls family did live in Oxford - so I wonder if a neighbour / friend and medals got swapped. I'll look into that. The chances of finding his ordinal though are slim to none (!) 

 

Thanks again Max

 

[ss002d6252]

3 minutes ago, tomralls said:

 

I have requested a page check from the NA for £8.40 - will reserve judgment until they revert !! may be a costly exercise...

 

I have his military cross - but it does not have a bar across this ribbon? It does however have a small rosette / rose pinned to it - not sure what that means.

 

The Ralls family did live in Oxford - so I wonder if a neighbour / friend and medals got swapped. I'll look into that. The chances of finding his ordinal though are slim to none (!) 

 

Thanks again Max

 

LIke this ? 

If so the rose came with the 1914 star and clasp.

Craig

[MaxD]

The rosette is likely to be the emblem that went with the 1914 Star if the man had actually served under fire (as opposed to being in theatre) during the qualification period 5 Aug to 25 Nov 1914.  The emblem was to be worn when only the ribbon was worn, a clasp on the ribbon with those dates was for when the Star was worn.  Sounds as if his 1914 Star has gone walkabout and only the emblem has remained, pinned to his MC for safe keeping which itself has lost its bar. 

 

Craig has kindly provided a picture.

 

Max

 

[tomralls]

2 minutes ago, ss002d6252 said:

LIke this ? 

If so the rose came with the 1914 star and clasp.

Craig

 

Thats the one! so that isn't relevant to his military cross... What does the rosette denote? It is currently loose and I wanted to fix it to the ribbon (Planned to get the medals framed)

 

What would the 'bar' look like for the military cross and can they be purchased anywhere?

 

Sorry for so many questions!!!

 

Thanks as ever

[MaxD]

See my post above

 

Max

[MaxD]

Just want to be sure - have you got the 1914 Star and its ribbon?  Ask Northeast Medals (Google) about the bar to the MC.

 

Max

Edited 8 February , 2018 by MaxD
addition

[tomralls]

Thanks Max, how interesting

 

So if I was to frame the medals - then really I should leave the rosette off as this wouldn't have been worn - only on the ribbon band.

 

Thanks for the tip on the bar - I will drop them a note.

 

I will need the records to know if he served under fire... 

 

Well i certainly know a lot more this afternoon than I did this morning - so thank you!

[David_Underdown]

Isn't a rosette also used to represent a bar to a medal in the case of only the medal ribbons being worn? In which case the rosette could indeed be associated with the MC , but should have been on the small piece of ribbon usually worn on the uniform (when the full medals were not being worn).

 

You can see what the full bar would look like on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Cross

[ss002d6252]

4 minutes ago, David_Underdown said:

Isn't a rosette also used to represent a bar to a medal in the case of only the medal ribbons being worn? In which case the rosette could indeed be associated with the MC , but should have been on the small piece of ribbon usually worn on the uniform (when the full medals were not being worn).

 

You can see what the full bar would look like on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Cross

It appears a silver one is


Craig

Edited 8 February , 2018 by ss002d6252

[MaxD]

Yes, the Star should have its ribbon and its clasp and separately the emblem although I have seen examples of the Star being worn with the emblem attached.

 

I go with Craig that the other rose was/is silver not brass.

 

Max

[tomralls]

I have the silver rosette as per Craig's photo.

 

I don't however have this:

 

[MaxD]

The Dickinsons and the Ralls were related.  In 1881 young Guy Dickinson is with his family in Headington Oxford, father JH Dickinson born Harrogate.  In 1891 FH Ralls is living with the JH Dickinson family in Headington.

 

I'll leave the medals to the others, still not sure if you have the 1914 Star.

 

Max

[tomralls]

37 minutes ago, MaxD said:

The Dickinsons and the Ralls were related.  In 1881 young Guy Dickinson is with his family in Headington Oxford, father JH Dickinson born Harrogate.  In 1891 FH Ralls is living with the JH Dickinson family in Headington.

 

I'll leave the medals to the others, still not sure if you have the 1914 Star.

 

Max

 

How you find this information so fast is beyond me!

 

I can't find this household link on ancestry... will have to look harder

 

I have a 1914 star - but it belonged to W.S.T. Ralls (His younger brother) this is inscribed on the back of the star

 

So all in all, medals are a little mixed up !!