Arthur Thomas Williams, Royal Engineers

[TEW]

13 minutes ago, cjwilliams048 said:

So have I got this right? The medals were unclaimed and were returned to the War Office?

Chris

I believe so. By 'War Office' they mean the Medal Office. It is the MO that create the medal cards from the rolls and it would be the MO that has annotated the roll with the para 992 part.

From the info so far he never received any medals which should have been sent out automatically.

The medals were returned to the MO by the RE records at Chatham. They (Chatham) may not have had an address to send his medals to and so held onto them hoping he would claim them. Newspapers ran notices to the effect that men should claim their medals and he would have been issued medals if he had made enquiries.

One can only speculate that he chose not to apply for his medals and had no further contact with the Chatham office.

TEW

 

 

 

[cjwilliams048]

9 hours ago, TEW said:

I believe so. By 'War Office' they mean the Medal Office. It is the MO that create the medal cards from the rolls and it would be the MO that has annotated the roll with the para 992 part.

 

 

 

 

TEW

Thank you so much for taking the time to analyse the Medal Roll and to clarify the situation regarding Arthur’s medals. I really appreciate it. It is good to have some clarity in this part of the search to find out about Arthur’s military service when so much remains unclear. It has been difficult trying to trace his military service, particularly as his records were burnt, and as you will see from this thread there is the conundrum of why he ended up in Italy which will probably never be solved.

Matlock - thank you also for persisting in the search for the truth!

[TEW]

I realised that the first post relates to a pension claim in Jan 1920 which may have been stamped 'DEAD' (the claim, not the man!)  March 1921? (I can't quite read the last date).

That means he was interested in claiming a pension and no doubt Chatham records would have had to supply information regarding the claim. It would appear that either Chelsea or the MoP had the Maidstone Address for him in Jan 1920.

There is a slip that accompanies the medal roll that is dated December 1921 which I think is the date the medals were ready to be issued. I found a service record for 3711 & 554324 Phillips and he returned his receipt for his medals 16/2/1922.

One would think that if Chatham had to supply the MoP with information they would then have the Jan 1920 address for him but it doesn't automatically follow that they would use this address to send medals. If the claim failed by March 1921 he may well have moved by then which would mean he would have to apply for them.

It's impossible to know what correspondence was in his service file but it's possible that Chatham records had worked out that they had no current address for him for despatch of the medals. It's usually stated that medals were sent out automatically but if the records office know this is futile they hang on to the medals.

The medals were sent back to the Medal office under Paragraph 992 of King's Regulation 1923. The annotated medal roll has a date of the CRV (receipt voucher) dated 17/3/1924. The same date and annotation 8426/adt is present in all cases of returned medals on this roll. That means that Chatham held on to these medals for about 3 years before returning them to the medal office as a batch.

There are a few cases where the returned medals were claimed later on.

Images sourced from Ancestry.

3973 Paul applied for his medals January 1929. His medal card also carries the re-issue details which is otherwise identical to Williams.

 

Moving on to the rank problem.

2822 Meadows. His medal card shows Acting 2nd Corporal, so acting ranks are shown on medals.

 

2974 Landman. Column 2 on the medal roll shows A/Cpl while column 4 shows Spr. His medal card only shows Spr.

 

I think it was stated in an earlier post but I also think that column 2 is showing either the highest rank achieved during service (including home service post armistice) or the actual final rank at the end of service. It is consistently the rank shown in column 4 that matches the details on the card and therefore the actual medal.

TEW

 

[cjwilliams048]

TEW

Thanks again for your help and such a detailed and illuminating reply. As you say, I suspect the Acting CQMS must have been a rank achieved post Armistace. It is entirely possible that he could not be found at the Maidstone address as there is no record of him there in the 1921 census, in fact there seems to be no record of him anywhere in the census! He is not living with his wife and two children who are on the census - they are living with her parents. I will send an application for his medals to be sent to me and hopefully it will be successful.

Another strange fact is that on his marriage certificate and on his daughter’s birth certificate ( both in August 1917) he states that he is a Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers! Maybe this refers to his voluntary time in the Territorials prior to being called up or maybe he was being economical with the truth!

Chris

Edited 19 April by cjwilliams048

[Matlock1418]

29 minutes ago, TEW said:

I think it was stated in an earlier post but I also think that column 2 is showing either the highest rank achieved during service (including home service post armistice) or the actual final rank at the end of service. It is consistently the rank shown in column 4 that matches the details on the card and therefore the actual medal.

I suggested potentially A/C QMS as final rank & home service.

Thank you for your expert analysis - Spr on medal certainly seems indicated by MR & MIC and most likely

M

[Matlock1418]

3 minutes ago, cjwilliams048 said:

Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers!

LCpl was never a rank - but an Appointment for a substantive Pte/Spr [it would never be impressed into a medal - in fact medals were sent out with such an advisory note on LCpl]

M

Edited 19 April by Matlock1418

[cjwilliams048]

Thanks Matlock. You and TEW have been a great help. I wasn’t expecting LCpl to appear on the medals but is it conceivable that he was a LCpl for his work with the Territorials before being enlisted for service overseas? So essentially he would have been a Sapper when he got married!
 Chris

[Matlock1418]

1 minute ago, cjwilliams048 said:

I wasn’t expecting LCpl to appear on the medals but is it conceivable that he was a LCpl for his work with the Territorials before being enlisted for service overseas? So essentially he would have been a Sapper when he got married!

I can't comment on the detail of any other other service [since I don't know it] but I would take it that on marriage as a LCpl he would be a substantive  Pte/Spr according to his Regiment/Corps

M

[TEW]

Can't say I know that much about RE ranks & appointments but the roll I looked through had 2nd Corporals and Acting 2nd Corporals.

A second corporal wore one chevron but it was a rank in the RE unlike L/Cpl.

Not sure if Acting 2/Cpl. equates to a L/Cpl ?

TEW

[Matlock1418]

3 hours ago, cjwilliams048 said:

Another strange fact is that on his marriage certificate and on his daughter’s birth certificate ( both in August 1917) he states that he is a Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers! Maybe this refers to his voluntary time in the Territorials prior to being called up or maybe he was being economical with the truth!

Not having seen either document ...

If it was his active choice for LCpl he was not being economical with the truth but rather exeeding it! - I suspect hard to do if in uniform and you don't have a single stripe on your arm. Or seemingly wrong.

1 hour ago, TEW said:

Can't say I know that much about RE ranks & appointments but the roll I looked through had 2nd Corporals and Acting 2nd Corporals.

A second corporal wore one chevron but it was a rank in the RE unlike L/Cpl.

Not sure if Acting 2/Cpl. equates to a L/Cpl ?

RE are certainly not my specialist subject either - the main point is LCpl would/should never appear on a medal [though I think as a rank a substantive 2nd Cpl would appear]

My speculation: The use of LCpl on a Marriage Certificate and a Birth Certificate to me rather smacks of possible civilian errors, Vicar and Registrar see a RE soldier in uniform with a single stripe on his arm = LCpl.  ATW should have known better and perhaps if he was all loved-up and proud he might not notice it and/or care or want to upset those, who to him are likely to be considered of higher status, so he just went along with it.  Who knows?

Of couse nowadays it is an interesting and curious observation - I wonder if it can be better explained. ??

M

Edited 19 April by Matlock1418

[cjwilliams048]

10 minutes ago, Matlock1418 said:

If it was his active choice for LCpl he was not being economical with the truth but rather exeeding it! - I suspect hard to do if in uniform and you don't have a single stripe on your arm. Or seemingly wrong.

Well, he was known to exaggerate, so anything is possible!

I have had too much time to think! I have been thinking about the ACQMS rank again. First, I thought whether he could have been appointed before he went overseas and that might account for him not going to France until March 1918. However, I dismissed this because, if that was the case, he presumably would have carried that rank overseas. So the conclusion is that he was given that rank post Armistice - there was time for this as he was not discharged until November 1919, but how does that equate with him being wounded or disabled and applying for a Chelsea pension. If he had been injured during the fighting he would presumably have been discharged earlier. If he was still doing his job of ACQMS up until November 1917 his injury can’t have been that substantial! Am I overthinking this?!

Chris

[Matlock1418]

37 minutes ago, cjwilliams048 said:

not discharged until November 1919, but how does that equate with him being wounded or disabled and applying for a Chelsea pension. If he had been injured during the fighting he would presumably have been discharged earlier. If he was still doing his job of ACQMS up until November 1917 his injury can’t have been that substantial! 

There did not have to be an immediate discharge if wounded or diseased, especially if it was relatively minor - could potentially carry on and then claim at the point of discharge [as all men had the opportunity to do so, typically on Army Form Z.22 - and I note a Z/RE/101530 reference on the card in the OP]. 

We don't know if it was wound(s) or disease(s) he claimed for, well not from the card in the OP

To obtain a pension there had to be an acceptance that there was an on-going disability.  Many men got refused. 

There is no direct evidence of acceptance/award or refusal on the card in the OP but from the MoP 11/M/295091 reference and the SFA.94797 Identity Certificate number it rather looks like he probably got something.

The DEAD stamp indicates his claim file was considered closed in/by 1927

M