Pte J Rennie, Scottish Rifles.

[PAUL RENNIE]

I am in possession of a WW1 medal with the following stamped on the edge.

33587.PTE. J . RENNIE. SCO. RIF.

This medal was sent to me on the pretext that it belonged to our Family.  IT DOES NOT.

I would duly like to return it to its rightful N.O.K.

I am aware that the SCO RIF. were disbanded in the 1960, and renamed the Caledonian Rifles.

Paul.

[Michelle Young]

No family details on his medal index card (image courtesy of Ancestry.co.uk)

[PRC]

9 hours ago, PAUL RENNIE said:

I would duly like to return it to its rightful N.O.K.

Hi @PAUL RENNIE and welcome to the forum.

An admirable sentiment but one that may prove difficult to achieve, as it's likely that we are four or five generations on and there may not be any direct descendants.

Unfortunately, like the vast majority of other ranks, his service records appear to have gone up in flames in WW2 when German bombs hit the London Warehouse where they were stored. There is a very small chance that he may have stayed in the Army postwar and so the records were stored elsewhere and avoided the fire, but you'd need to know more about the man to stand any chance of finding them at the MoD - and at £30+ and a year or more wait it's not a route to go down on a trial and error basis.

He appears to have survived the war as there is no record of him on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.

He does not appear to have been discharged due to wounds or ill-health, as there is both no record of the Silver War Badge issued to men who were honourably discharged from the Army before the official end of the conflict, nor does there appear to be any surviving Ministry of Pensions paperwork for him for a War Disability Pension.

So far I've not found any record of him in the casualty lists - from 1916 onwards the lists included a place name for the location of the next of kin.

His Medal Index Card shows the only service medals he qualified for the Victory Medal and British War Medal. This combination means that he did not serve in a Theatre of War until some point on or after the 1st January 1916. And while British Army Regiments have never been 100% drawn from a specific area, this became even more diluted in the later years of the War after the introduction of conscription early in 1916.

One option is to consider donating them to the relevant regimental museum, but usually as they have so many they will quite often just sell them on to fund their work.

Hopefully one of our forum members who is a bit more canny about things north of the border can advise which Regimental Museum might cover the Scottish Rifles and whether they might have documents like a muster roll  \ enlistment book that might give you somewhere to start a search from.

There is also a membership overlap between this forum and the British Medal Forum, which has a long-running sub-forum for people looking to be re-united with lost family medals.

Sorry it's not more constructive,

Peter

[rolt968]

I have found a little more:

There is an entry in the Medal Rolls (ancestry). He was James Rennie. At least in theory his overseas service was entirely with 2 Scottish Rifles. (Another battalion might have been missed off the Medal Roll.)

The Cameronians Museum is outside Hamilton:

http://www.cameronians.org/museum/

RM

Edit: The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) were disbanded in 1968, rather than merge with another regiment. If I remember rightly the second battalion preferred to use the Scottish Rifles title.

Edited 23 May , 2022 by rolt968

[FROGSMILE]

20 hours ago, PAUL RENNIE said:

I am in possession of a WW1 medal with the following stamped on the edge.

33587.PTE. J . RENNIE. SCO. RIF.

This medal was sent to me on the pretext that it belonged to our Family.  IT DOES NOT.

I would duly like to return it to its rightful N.O.K.

I am aware that the SCO RIF. were disbanded in the 1960, and renamed the Caledonian Rifles.

Paul.

Hello Paul,  

It’s laudable that you should wish to return the medal to surviving family.  The Cameronian’s (Scottish Rifles) were a regiment with a dual title formed in 1881 from two predecessors with very different backgrounds.  One, the 26th Regiment (Cameronian’s), was religiously devout with a Covenanter background, whereas the 90th Regiment (Light Infantry), had no such strong religious observances.  It was felt that making them both Rifles (and adopting dark green uniform) might act as a unifying factor, but for a long time they tried to keep strong association with their differing origins, to the extent that the 2nd Battalion referred to themselves as Scottish Rifles and the 1st Battalion as Cameronian’s, with minor affectations and idiosyncrasies in their dress to reflect that.  It wasn’t really until 1947, when the two battalions merged as part of post WW2 reductions, that the then one battalion regiment settled into a coherent whole for the first time, whilst attempting to retain the spirit and tradition of their forebears.

In 1968 they were one of two British infantry regiments who when offered the choice of either, amalgamation with another regiment, or disbanding, chose voluntarily to go into ‘suspended animation’, with the possibility that they might one day be resurrected.  Both regiments remained in the annual Army List and retained a regimental headquarters at public expense.  Eventually, in the 1980s, both regiments stood down completely and their headquarters closed, apart from for a short time some Army Cadet Force companies.  Eventually these too adopted an alternative regimental affiliation and the old insignia ceased to be worn.  The regimental museum is divided in two parts, an online presence and a collection of objects in the municipal town museum in Hamilton.  See: https://www.sllccameronians.co.uk

 

 

Edited 23 May , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[Interested]

I wonder if the reason you received the medal was because the previous custodian couldn't find any descendants either?

[PAUL RENNIE]

11 hours ago, Interested said:

I wonder if the reason you received the medal was because the previous custodian couldn't find any descendants either?

Could have been, but worth a try. Thanks.

 

[FROGSMILE]

13 hours ago, PAUL RENNIE said:

Could have been, but worth a try. Thanks.

 

Are you aware that you were provided above with responses to your question concerning a regimental museum? 

[Ivor Anderson]

On 23/05/2022 at 01:53, PAUL RENNIE said:

I am in possession of a WW1 medal with the following stamped on the edge.

33587.PTE. J . RENNIE. SCO. RIF.

This medal was sent to me on the pretext that it belonged to our Family.  IT DOES NOT.

Do you know who sent it or did it arrived anonymously?   Is it the silver war medal or the victory medal? 

Personally I would hold onto it. Anyone looking for it will find it mentioned here if they search the web.

I would change the thread title to: 33587 Pte J (James) Rennie, Scottish Rifles

Edited 24 May , 2022 by Ivor Anderson

[PAUL RENNIE]

2 hours ago, Ivor Anderson said:

Do you know who sent it or did it arrived anonymously?   Is it the silver war medal or the victory medal? 

Personally I would hold onto it. Anyone looking for it will find it mentioned here if they search the web.

I would change the thread title to: 33587 Pte J (James) Rennie, Scottish Rifles

Thanks Ivor, It is the silver war medal I think, It has a rider on horseback on the reverse. With King George bust on the front.  Many thanks for info. Under the circumstances I hav eno option but to hold on to it.

Many Thanks.

Paul.

[PRC]

One small thought.

When we get posts from people looking to track down family medals, standard advice includes adding comments to the MiC's on Ancestry and setting up notifications on the likes of e-bay and other selling platforms so that they become aware if the medals come up for sale. None of that is unique advice, and I'm sure individuals could probably think of that themselves.

Flipping that on it's head, you could put them up for sale on the likes of e-bay and if nobody contacts you in a couple of days then withdraw them from sale.

Realise you may not want the hassle and it would need to be done in a zero-cost way.

Cheers,
Peter