MIC date stamps

[ZIL]

Can. anyone help with these stamps and writing on a MIC.I have not seen them before.What do they mean/indicate.Image from Ancestry..cropped for clarity.

Thanks Zil

[Lawryleslie]

Would suggest that you post an image of the full MIC. The stamped dates on the right almost certainly an error. 1/3/21 could be date issued but the whole card may help further and give more clues.

Edited 26 April , 2021 by Lawryleslie

[Andrew Upton]

2 minutes ago, Lawryleslie said:

Would suggest that you post an image of the full MIC. The stamped dates on the right almost certainly an error. 1/3/21 could be date issued but the whole card may help further and give more clues.

 

The stamped dates on the right are not an error - they indicate when the card was examined for some purpose. So twice in the 1980's someone was checking on either the medal entitlement, previous service or similar of the soldier on the card.

[Lawryleslie]

15 minutes ago, Andrew Upton said:

 

The stamped dates on the right are not an error - they indicate when the card was examined for some purpose. So twice in the 1980's someone was checking on either the medal entitlement, previous service or similar of the soldier on the card.

Thanks for this. I’ve never seen date stamps like this and I’ve seen 100s of MICs. Perhaps these dates indicate when someone was querying his medal awards. Do you know what "C625" refers to?

[Keith_history_buff]

Reproduction of the upper side of the MIC would certainly help to get more traction on this question.

[TEW]

C625 could easily be a former reference to the medal roll. You can search TNA with these former references and this returns as Royal Fusiliers 14-15 Star, now WO329/2634.

 

The red stamps do indicate some checking of the records  I believe there's several posts on these before and one identified the stamped date corresponded to an enquiry they had made by post.

 

You can sometimes find these stamps on Ancestry (WFA?) versions and not on TNA images as ancestry images are later than TNA. In other words, after TNA scanned them and returned them to the medal office they continued to update the cards with new queries.

TEW

Edited 26 April , 2021 by TEW

[ZIL]

Thanks for all the info..I thought they were enquiry stamps which might indicate an enquiry by relatives of recipient or other interested party.

Would TNA be able to assist further if I contact or another similar source? Regards Zil

Further to the above there is a superb post by MBrockway dated May2017 which answers my query in full.Thanks to TEW for the lead.

My ask about who best to contact still remains..Thanks again Zil

Edited 26 April , 2021 by ZIL

[TEW]

No one else out there to contact who would have further knowledge of the red stamp.

 

There is a forum member who used to work at the medal office with the MICs and who may even have stamped the card.

 

The enquires could come from the recipient, his family, NOK, or another government body EG. DHSS, police etc. None of the correspondence exists now so apart from having a date you have no way to determine who it was from or why.

 

Unless, you find a family member who wrote to the medal office on those dates as is demonstrated in another post.

 

TEW

[ZIL]

Thanks TEW...Yourself and others have fully answered my query...really appreciated...Zil

[Andrew Upton]

To illustrate my earlier point, an example of the dating (albeit hand-written in this instance) on the MIC of John Reginald Halliday Christie, aka Reg Christie the serial killer of 10 Rillington Place. The date of May 11th 1953 is about 6 weeks after his arrest (following the discovery of additional bodies at 10 Rillington Place that Christie had moved away from in March), and about 6 weeks before his murder trial would start. He'd made various claims as to his previous service during the course of the trial of Timothy Evans in 1950 (resulting in Evans being wrongly executed for the murder of his wife and daughter) and it appears this time no stone was being left unturned:

 

[TEW]

Looking at Christie's background I found a 2016 forum post on home and just discovered I said:

 

His medal roll only indicates 2/6th Notts & Derby. His MIC has a penciled in date of 11/5/1953 (while in custody). Surely some sort of check of his military background?

 

Must remember previous posts!

 

Interesting if other MICs of the infamous have dates connected to custody.

TEW

 

 

Edited 26 April , 2021 by TEW

[Mark1959]

As I used to use said stamps in the 1980s I confirm, as indicated by the contributors, these stamps show that the medal records were examined for some reasons. The most common reason being the Army Records Centre at Hayes had asked us to look at them. A good chance the 1985 stamp was put there by me. 
The cards were kept at the end of the library. Shelves containing the rolls occupied that end of the library.

Edited 26 April , 2021 by Mark1959

[ZIL]

Thanks Mark1959. Would a record be kept of who contacted and for what reason.If yes..would it be accessible today and where would it be located?

Regards Zil

[Derek Black]

I recall on a previous thread on this subject, someone identifying a red stamp date to a query his family made about their relatives war service.

[TEW]

The medal office were going to destroy the MICs circa 2005. WFA stepped in and saved them. If they were going to destroy the MICs can't see why they would keep any correspondence. As the WFA have the MICs now even less reason to keep any correspondence and I assume no mention of correspondence was offered to the WFA.

 

Presumably any kind of enquiry was made to the Army Record Office and filtered along to different offices including the medal office.

 

Unless Mark can recall the specific enquiry for this card! I don't think you're going to get any further with this.

TEW

[ZIL]

Thanks to Derek Black and once again TEW...I didn’t realise the WFA had the cards...I knew they scanned them etc...now enlightened!!!!I.  I agree they would only keep the cards...anything else would have been destroyed.It’s been an interesting & totally informative post.I hope others have benefitted apart from myself...Thanks once again Zil

[TEW]

I think if the WFA had been offered correspondence they would have grabbed it.

TEW

[ZIL]

I agree...it’s part of the archive.

Zil

[Keith_history_buff]

Every once in a while, you come across correspondence from more recent times in the WO 363 records. I think this is by accident rather than design. From a data protection angle, correspondence from members of the public from the 1980s or 1990s enquiring after what had survived ought to have been destroyed. If you take the time to access the record for 5555 Thomas William Stratford, the information request from extended family, and the typed summary of service sent in response from MOD Hayes (now a warehouse on an industrial estate) can be seen.

If I remember rightly, the WO 363 burnt records were handed over in 1996, and these fragile records were photographed at that time.

The WO 372 records were transferred to Kew, being the black & white microform images of the MICs that had been captured for the MOD Medal Office at Droitwich in or around 1989. In 1996 the campaign medal index cards were destined for the skip, but the WFA stepped in. Similarly the gallantry cards were heading for the same fate, but a forum member intervened, and he has the original cards for the MM.

[Mark1959]

Again nothing much to add. The AMO records will not have been retained as far as I am aware. I left in the late 1980s slightly before the events sescribed by Keith. You do come across the replies to enquiries in service docs. These should not have been released with the service docs. Given the MICs, medal rolls and service docs, where they exist, are in the public domain the enquiries would add nothing of significant historical value. 

Before IT was used the MICs were essential to find the medal roll entry at the AMO. The codes on the MIC would refer you to an index book that in turn referred you to the actual medal roll - there are hundreds of them. The rolls were heavy for a chap my size and you hated it when the roll was on the top shelf. Had to clmb the ladder and then balance yourself as you went back down the ladder. More than once I landed in a heap. It would have made an interesting injury claim - crushed by a medal roll!

[ZIL]

I certainly cannot anything apart from a sincere thank you for all the knowledge.

Zil