Medals returned query

[CassieRae]

Why other than some family disagreement would family return his medals?  This isnlt the first I have come across.

[MaxD]

second thought

Edited 16 October , 2018 by MaxD
deleted for second thought

[MaxD]

Para 1743 of Kings regulations refers to medals unclaimed after 10 years which suggest that they had been returned initially and are here being disposed of 10 years later.  Why returned - form of protest?  Family moved house?

Max

[CassieRae]

Thanks Max, I wasn't sure if there was an Army reason behind this. Cheers.  One reason his wife remarried and so would not be interested and maybe didn't ask his parents or other family.  They had a son! 

Edited 16 October , 2018 by CasseRae

[tullybrone]

Hi,

 

it could be the case that the Records office sent the medals to the last known address of the widow and she had moved house so the Post Office returned the medals.

 

Steve

[CassieRae]

Ah.. that's a nicer thought than mine Steve, Thanks.

[TEW]

The medal roll says his 1914 Star & Clasp were sent out April 1918 and returned (by post office) Aug 1923.

His BWM & Victory were sent out Aug 1920 and returned by same Sept 1923.

 

Soldier's Effects has no disposal details, there was at least £4-13s-8d available to either a chosen beneficiary or if intestate to his legal NOK (probably his wife). His unclaimed monies would have been advertised in the Gazette but no indication they were ever claimed.

 

It's not unusual to see the medals returned unclaimed but the money claimed which might mean the Effects Branch had a correspondance address which the Medal Branch didn't have or that the money was wanted but the medals weren't.

 

In the event of a soldier's death, his will (if he had made one) would have been checked rather than just automatically sending the medals to the named NOK on enlistment as circumstances might have changed since then.

 

If his wife had remarried by 1918 perhaps new husband wanted nothing to do with Lewis Brooks or his outstanding money/medals or to let his stepson know anything.

TEW

[Guest]

My late gt gt Uncle Michael Murray Connaught Rangers, RAMC returned his medals in protest as he was trying to claim for the pension but was told his had not served enough of years, he joined in 1900 and finally came out in 1920......in the colours and reserves. He was said to be short by less than 100 days. He was given £85 as a one-off payment for an injury to a finger. Reading his records recently it mentions that he also served in the Boer War so I’m sure he would have qualified if those dates were added. I was also told by a researcher for the Connaught Rangers that there was a lot of confusion about the pension and a lot of men would have been missed out when they actually did qualify.

He wrote in one of many letters that dated up to 1930s that a lot of people were being given land that did not fight in the war and how was he to survive on his medals!

my mother whose family he lived with remembers him well but said she never saw any medals and he would often take off and be gone for weeks staying at the homes of other men he fought with. He died in 1956 and is buried in the local cemetery but to this day he has no headstone to be remembered by.