Solving some family history mysteries

A faded photo of Richard Gibson Little is the
only image we have of him. He is in the uniform
of the York and Lancaster Regiment, who wore
peaked caps making them all look like officers!

This blog post is hardly my own work - it’s down to research by Mike Towers, husband of my cousin Jennifer, who has spent many hours looking into the antecedence of Richard Gibson Little, my grandfather.

His was a hard life and he died at the age of 49 from pneumonia. Already a widower, his six children were now orphaned.

When their mother died Richard was unable to care for the children and the five youngest went to live in Stanley House, a children's home in Doncaster. My mother had told me many stories of life in the orphanage, of the cruel matron (Mrs Nurse). She had been 14 when her father died and she’d had the hope that soon, she would have been able to leave Stanley House and become the carer at their house in Adwick Le Street, looking after the children, while her father worked.

As it happened, her father died and my mother was placed in service at a large house in Yorkshire where she worked until joining the WRNS during the Second World War and training as a cook.

I’d asked my mother quite a lot about her father, but I’m not sure how much she had known about his life (he died when she was 14) and she died when I was 11 so there’s only so much you’ll tell an 11-year-old. I knew he was a tall man (but most dads look tall to their children) and that he had ginger hair. Later, I took the opportunity to ask my Uncle Dick (cousin Jennifer’s dad). He knew a few things, but was a couple of years younger than my mother and would have had even less opportunity to talk to his father about his past.

So there were lots of untested stories about Richard Gibson Little, which Mike has summarised as:

1.  His birth and death registrations show his name only as Richard Little, so why during his lifetime does he use the middle name of Gibson? His army records and medals from the First World War also show him as Richard Gibson Little.

2.  Did the name Gibson come from the maiden name of his first wife? This was a story I’d heard from my mother and may have passed on to Mike. The story was that he’d fallen in love with and married the daughter of a family of wealthy shopkeepers from Carlisle. They had disapproved and when the woman died in childbirth, he’d left Cumberland and gone to fight in France, taking her maiden name as his middle name. There were other versions and a similar story, with variances was told by my uncle, Dick Little.

3.  Who were Richard’s parents? Was his father called Joseph? Online research had not been helpful, creating more questions and no answers.

4.  Did a maiden aunt bring him up after his mother was said to have died three or four years after his birth?

5.  On Richard’s death, it was said there was a ‘father’ who declined through solicitors, to take responsibility of Richard’s children who remained in Stanley House, the orphanage?

6.  Richard’s ‘father’ was said to have moved to Cheshire, remarried and had two sons with his second wife.

7.  Richard's second wife, my grandmother Nelly Beatrice Burrows, descended from a Scottish connection. I certainly know this not to be true as I have her ancestors firmly planted in Yorkshire and Norfolk for many generations.

Mike has been interested in family history for some years and is quite experienced, so I was pleased that he took on the task of trying to find out the truth. His research started with Richard’s death, which is always a sobering event to look at.

The Death Certificate shows he died of broncho pneumonia on 15 December 1937 at Springwell House, Doncaster, aged 49.  At the time he was living at Village Street, Adwick Le Street about five miles north-west of Doncaster and I know he was a cowman. Uncle Dick had told me that he didn't look after himself properly and had got wet and cold. His must have been a pretty hard life, living on his own and with his six children in a home in Doncaster five miles away. He must have been fairly well thought of because the farmer sent word to Stanley House to say that he'd take my Uncle Dick on as cowman when he left school (aged 14). Dick had been quite scornful of the offer (when he recounted the story to me) and instead was packed off to Keighley on the train with a few shillings in his pocket, the address of a boarding house and promise of work in a mill. 

Anyway, I digress, back to Richard Gibson Little, my grandfather. Seriously ill with pneumonia, he was taken to Springwell House and it doesn't sound a great place. Mike researched it on the web site www.workhouses.org.uk/Doncaster/. Springwell House, built in 1897 in Balby, had been the local workhouse and it must have been grim. The web site says:

“After the Local Government Act, 1929 abolished the Poor Law Guardians in 1930, responsibility for public assistance, and the former workhouse, fell upon Doncaster County Borough Council. The council renamed the premises Springwell House Public Assistance Institution. The buildings functioned as a hospital and provided accommodation for the destitute and for those who [in the language of the period] were classed as 'mentally deficient'."

It must have been a rotten place because when the NHS was created after the Second World War, it was proposed not to adopt Springwell House as a hospital because of the 'poor quality of the accommodation'. In the end, the premises were taken over by the NHS and it became the Western Hospital in 1950. The hospital was used mostly for maternity and geriatric patients. It was demolished in 1974 and the site redeveloped as a primary school and private housing.

Richard's death certificate records his age as 49, suggesting a birth in 1888.  As the family indicated that Richard was born in Cumberland, a search of the Birth Records enabled Mike to obtain a birth certificate in the name of Richard Little born 9 April 1888, a date that matches the family-quoted date.

This certificate records the birth at Ruckcroft, near Ainstable, a small hamlet to the north-east of Penrith, his mother being Margaret Little (nee Lowis), a charwoman, who appears to be illiterate as she had to make her ‘mark’ in completing the registration.

No father’s name is shown on the certificate with the space provided being struck out.  At the end of the 19th century this action by the Registrar generally indicated that the father was unknown or that the mother was not prepared to declare it and, therefore, Richard seems to have been illegitimate.

Mike then began tracing Richard in the census records available within his lifetime, with the following results:

1891 – shown as Richard G [suggesting he was already named Gibson] aged two; a nurse child; living at Cross House, Becks, Ainstable with Anthony and Mary Sander. Margaret Little, his mother, was not listed as living at the house and we've no idea where she was. Had she died and was Mary Sander the aunt of legend (although clearly not maiden)?

Research did not produce any connection between the Sanders and Margaret Little (nee Lowis) other than Anthony Sanders being the son of Joseph Sander, Registrar, who registered Margaret’s birth. Becks is within a mile of Richard’s place of birth and west and south of Ruckcroft, so we're talking about a small community where folk would be known to one another.

1901 – he pops up shown again as ‘Richard G’ aged 12, this time named as son with Joseph and Margaret Barnes at Ruckcroft. Joseph was an agricultural labourer but in later life became a corn miller. Joseph’s parents, and eventually Joseph, were millers at Dale Mill, Ainstable. So who were these people? Was Richard being fostered and had he now been adopted? Mike researched the Barnes family and found that Margaret, Joseph’s wife, was named Margaret Little (Richard's mother) on their marriage certificate. She was shown as a widow and her father as Henry Lowis. Margaret Barnes, was the same person as Margaret Little, nee Lowis, the mother of Richard. It's not clear where she'd been in the last census, but she was clearly alive and whatever her circumstances 10 years earlier, she'd got herself back on track and had taken Richard back into her care once she had a secure station in life? 

1911 – Richard cannot be found with or without his G, but would have been 22 years old. He served in the Great War with the York and Lancaster regiment which mainly recruited from the south Yorkshire (Hallamshire) area, so he may have moved there for reasons of work. Easy for a single man to slip through the census.

Mike needed to know a little more about Margaret Little (nee Lowis) and so he searched Cumberland Records for marriages of a Margaret Lowis (and alternatives such as Lewis and Lowes) and found a marriage to a John Little in 1871. Ten years later, in the 1881 census, Margaret and John were living at Castle Dyke, Ainstable, with their sons Henry Lowes Little (b.1871) and John Richard Little (b.1879). Also on the census page immediately above was that of a Henry and Jane Lowis. Tracing Henry and Jane back through the census records confirms that Margaret was their daughter, as did a copy of her birth certificate giving her birth as 11 April 1851 to parents Henry Lowis and Jane Lowis (nee Gibson).

To get closer to the Lowis/Little connection, in June 2012 Mike spent three days visiting the Carlisle Archives to examine specific Parish Records and he found baptism records for Margaret (8 February 1858 at Ainstable ie seven years after her birth) and most of her nine siblings. In addition, he found Parish Records confirming her two marriages to John Little (11 Nov 1871) and Joseph Barnes (28 Oct 1891).  Both men were shown as bachelors and Margaret Little as widow when she married Barnes. The 1911 census shows there were no children to this marriage, but she was 40 when she married for a second time and she'd been 37 when she had Richard.

So it looked as if Richard would be the son of John Little and Margaret (Lowis, Little, Barnes), explaining his surname and with the Gibson connection coming from Margaret’s mother’s maiden name. Margaret was clearly quite keen to keep her family's female surnames in memory because she’d used her own maiden name as the middle name for her first child. Her husband John had died, Richard was cared for by foster parents until Margaret got back on her feet and married again, then he was brought up by his birth mother and stepfather - all explained (or was it?).

Why was John Little not shown as Richard’s father on his birth certificate and what had happened to her other two sons? Mike subsequently traced John Little’s death to Sleetburn Colliery, Brandon and Byshottles just east of Durham on 8 January 1885 - Richard wasn’t born until April 1888, three years later. John Little could not have been his father.  

Like a lot of family history trails, this one was throwing up as many questions as answers.

One thing that is obvious in my family tree is the change in social history in the second half of the 19th Century with people becoming far more mobile. One of my great grandparents moved from rural Norfolk to the bustle of Liverpool, another moved from Norfolk to East Yorkshire; there was emigration to Canada and there was migration to London. People that had worked on the land for generations were being pushed off by mechanisation and they were also able to earn better wages by working in industry.

The fact that John and Margaret Little moved across the Pennines from near Penrith to Durham is not such a big leap. Durham was a thriving coal-mining area and would be hungry for workers. The connection with Durham seems to have come about because Margaret’s younger sister, Sarah, married John Healey and they moved to Co Durham where John Healey worked in the mines. I guess Margaret and John heard there was good money to be earned and followed them.

An interesting aside is that Sleetburn Colliery is not just a coalmine. A mineral called Witherite was mined there. This is a highly poisonous form of barium and it was considered pretty worthless (except as rat poison) until Josiah Wedgwood used it in his Jasper ware.
So, upon Richard’s birth in 1888, Margaret had been a widow for more than three years. We know from his birth certificate that she was working as a charwoman (cleaner) and Mike was able to confirm that her two sons Henry and John were living with their father’s family.

Mike was not able to find a baptism record for Richard. He also searched the official Bastardy Records for the period to see who may have taken financial responsibility for Richard until Margaret married Joseph Barnes, but these did not extend beyond 1874 and so proved fruitless.

So who might Richard’s father have been and what would the Sanders’ motive have been for looking after him?

Anthony Sander, who was caring for Richard as a two-year-old in the 1891 census, was the son of Joseph Sander b.1802. In the 1851 census, Joseph Sander shows as a farmer of 65 acres and also a Registrar of Births and Deaths, living at The Vicarage, Ainstable with his wife Ann, a daughter and four sons, including Anthony (b.1831) and another called Joseph (b.1836) in Ainstable. Anthony married Mary and they also had a son called Joseph b.1867 in Ainstable.

You will recall that family lore states that Richard’s father was called Joseph, which may have been Joseph Barnes (his stepfather) but there are now a few other Josephs who have stepped into the limelight. Could either the son or grandson of the original Joseph Sander, both also called Joseph, be Richard’s father?

The first Joseph (b.1836) can be discounted as he died in 1869.

Anthony’s son, Joseph (b.1867) left home between 1881 and 1891 moving to Benwell, north of Gateshead, to become a crane driver. He was living with Richard Pearson and his family who had all been born in Ainstable and this was probably the connection that took him there. By the 1901 census, he had moved to Newcastle upon Tyne, become a Bank Porter and married Jane Chalder in 1893. She came from Alston near to Ainstable. In the 1911 census the family were still in Newcastle and Joseph was now a Bank Messenger.

The question is whether this Joseph was Richard’s natural father. This can only be answered if the Sander family can be traced and they have the knowledge. He was certainly of an age to have been the father and the connection of Ainstable between Joseph and Margaret is clear.  Further, it could be possible that Joseph’s parents, Anthony and Mary, cared for Richard as a ‘family’ son as Margaret was unable to provide financially for Richard.

This might seem a good explanation of why Anthony and Mary Sander were looking after Richard. Perhaps Margaret returned to Ainstable from Durham a widow with two sons. The Little family took in the sons and Sanders offered her some cleaning work where she caught the eye of young Joseph ...

It's possible, but Joseph would have been 21 and Margaret 36 when the "act" took place. I don't really have an image of my great grandmother as a 'cougar', but it's possible of course.

Joseph Sander died in 1932 aged 65.

After the 1901 census, there’s no trace of Richard Gibson Little (my grandfather) until he pops up as a soldier in the Great War. The regiment he joins is a small one which recruited from a distinct area and so it’s quite likely that he’d gone to South Yorkshire seeking work and had joined up soon after the outbreak of war. He’d been wounded and sent home for a spell. One of Richard's first actions was the Battle of Loos, where the British used poison gas (chlorine) for the first time. It wasn't massively successful as the wind changed and blew the gas back into the British trenches. Troops had gas masks, but these either didn't work properly and let the gas in or soldiers couldn't breathe with them fitted and so had either to take them off and have a whiff of chlorine or suffocate. I wonder if this contributed to Richard's death years later, making him more susceptible to lung infections. At the time, I guess he was glad to be ‘home’ in Cumberland, met Annie Elizabeth Braithwaite and wasted no time in marrying her on 20 September 1917 at Ousby – a village south-east of Ruckcroft and Ainstable.  

There is no father’s name shown on this marriage certificate, suggesting that Richard was illegitimate. Clearly, Richard did not take the name Gibson from Annie but certainly from his grandmother, Jane Lowis, whose maiden name was Gibson.  Sadly, the story about his first love dying was true as Annie died on 9 November 1919 during childbirth and there is no reference of the child surviving – it was not made compulsory to register a stillbirth until 1927.  My Aunt Margaret (Margaret Smith) has the prayer book given to Annie on her confirmation on 12 May 1910 by the Rector at Ousby.

Richard also shows himself as Gibson on his second marriage, to my grandmother Nelly Beatrice Burrows.  Nelly’s birth certificate shows she was born on 6 Apr 1894 at Low Catton, Pocklington, east of York.  Her father and his family come from Burston, Norfolk and her mother’s family are East Yorkshire based (both well documented), so no Scottish connection here.

Richard’s marriage certificate to Nelly records his father as Joseph Little. This is most likely to be his late stepfather Joseph Barnes. Mike thinks that Richard gave the name Joseph and occupation miller to the Rector when asked and the Rector had incorrectly written the name as Joseph Little instead of Joseph Barnes. Joseph had, of course, taken responsibility for and acted as Richard’s father following his marriage to Margaret, so he deserved some credit. Probably, no attempt was made to correct the mistake (if it was spotted) as Richard had other things on his mind (it was his wedding day) and both Joseph Barnes and his mother Margaret had died a few years earlier. Nelly was also four months pregnant when she married, so perhaps they just wanted to get the job done.

The question of Joseph Barnes being quoted as ‘father’ in official documents, such as the census, is common during the 19th and early 20th centuries in the case of second marriages by one partner. Richard's mother Margaret died of stomach cancer on the 30 May 1916 at Ousby Mill, Ousby, as the widow of Joseph Barnes, corn miller – Joseph had died in early 1915 in Ousby.  Mike visited St Luke’s Church, Ousby and with the help of a graveyard plan in the church, found and photographed the adjacent sites of Margaret and Joseph’s graves although no headstones are erected.

Sadly, after Nelly’s death in 1933 (at the age of 39), all of their children, except John, were taken into Stanley House Children’s Home run by Doncaster Council.  Upon Richard’s death in 1937 family lore states that a ‘father’ (grandfather) had declined to take responsibility for the children. Who might have turned their back on the family?

The only father figure still living at Richard’s death was John Burrows, Nelly’s father and the children’s grandfather (my great-grandfather). At this time he was 76 years old, a widower, and understandably unlikely to be willing (or able) to take in the children. He died in Doncaster three years later in 1940. I never heard my mother talk about her grandfather.

So where has this research left those family mysteries?

Mike has established:

➨  Richard was certainly illegitimate, with no natural father established. He clearly was given the name Gibson by his mother. It was her mother, Jane Lowis' maiden name and Margaret clearly liked to keep the female names alive (she'd christened her first son Lowis).

➨  Richard's mother was Margaret Lowis (born 1851; died 1916) who married first John Little (died 1885) and secondly Joseph Barnes with whom she brought up her illegitimate son Richard Gibson.

➨  Richard’s natural father cannot be determined and, whilst I have pointed a finger at Joseph Sander, Mike thinks this is unlikely. He thinks that if he had been the father Margaret and Joseph would have married before or shortly after Richard’s birth as, being single, neither had any reason not to do so. He also thinks that because Joseph’s grandfather was the local Registrar, a man of standing in the community, to legitimise the birth would have been a priority. That's all true, but of course, there was quite an age difference between the two and a 21-year-old man marrying a 37-year-old woman would have been highly unusual, even scandalous. Would Joseph's parents have wanted that? The age-difference alone might have been reason enough not to marry. In the event, Joseph was packed off across the Pennines and 'grandparents' Anthony and Mary Sander help out while Margaret gets back on her feet and bags husband no 2.

➨  If Joseph Barnes was the natural father the same argument (no restrictions on marrying) hold good, so why wait three years. Based on Richard and Nelly’s marriage certificate it was Joseph Barnes who family lore believe to be Joseph Little, father of Richard. This is supported by the father’s occupation being shown as miller on the certificate. I guess we'll never know and we should be happy that Joseph Barnes and Margaret Little were married and were able to bring up Richard.

➨  Nelly Burrows was certainly not Scottish - her family roots are deep in Norfolk and Yorkshire.

➨  The question of a father moving to Cheshire can be discounted.

➨  There was no maiden aunt and Richard’s mother did not die until much later when he was an adult. Perhaps the Sanders were the source of the maiden aunt story?

There are links here to previous blog postings concerning Richard Gibson Little:

Family History Mysteries

Family History Medals

If you’ve stuck with this posting to the bitter end, well done. Some family history research provides rollicking good stories like the frontiersman Zachariah Burrows, other stories are rather more forensic. Thanks again to Mike Towers for his diligence - this was a complicated one to unravel and there remains just enough uncertainty to keep that murky air of mystery that has made Richard Gibson Little so intriguing to us all.

If anyone wants access to the family tree just mail me and if anyone knows who my great grandfather really was then I’d love to know! We hate blank spaces on the family tree.

Medals of Richard Gibson Little from the First World War. The medals are all
inscribed: 15891 Pte R G Little, York. & Lanc. R. The medals are (left to right):
Allied Victory Medal (Wilfred), 1914-15 Star (Pip) and British War Medal (Squeak).

Family History - the medals

Had a real panic on Sunday. We had the house upside down trying to find Granddad Little's war medals. Turned out they were in a chest previously checked by Margaret, but ho-hum, just relieved to know where they were. The three medals awarded to my grandfather Richard Gibson Little are the 1914-15 Star; the British War Medal 1914-18 and the Allied Victory Medal.

I've included some information about the medals below.

The medals are all inscribed: 15891 Pte R G Little, York. & Lanc. R.

I presume the number is his service number and would suggest that the citation for the DCM (mentioned in the previous post) was a different R Little (different number and different regiment) - the York and Lancaster Regiment for my granddad as opposed to the West Riding Regiment.

The fact that he has the 1914-15 Star, as opposed to the 1914 Star would suggest that he wasn't involved in the very earliest battles of the war, in particular the First Battle of Mons. I think that bit of misinformation came from Uncle Don who was a career soldier. I showed him the medals to see if he knew which ribbon went with which medal. He didn’t, but he told me that it was a Mons Star which meant he’d fought in the first Battle of Mons. In fact, there’s a very slight difference in the 1914 Star and the 1914-15 Star (which is explained below). It’s useful to have the internet to find out information like that. I was able to see which ribbon went with which in a flash.

I was also able to find out some information on the York and Lancaster regiment. The restricted recruiting area for the regiment (described below) suggests that Richard was in South Yorkshire when he joined up. We were always led to believe that he was in the army when the First World War was declared, so he must have moved across from Penrith (not that far really) before the war and been working in South Yorkshire.

I’ll have to look into his war record, but he could well have been in the Second Battalion, which was in Ireland when war was declared and shipped over to France in September 1914. It arrived in time to help stem the German breakthrough and stabilise the line of trenches which became the Western Front. It wasn’t a great regiment to join with almost 9,000 killed from 57,000 men. That’s a 16 per cent chance of being killed. The actual rate of attrition for those in France would have been much higher because half the regiment was serving in other, less dangerous theatres. I've attached a small note (below) from Wikipedia on the York and Lancaster Regiment and also some notes on the medals.

There is still a mystery over the ‘Gibson’. At some stage Richard Little became Richard Gibson Little. He’s described as R G Little on his war medals. The story was that he was married before his marriage to Nelly (my grandmother), but the family didn’t approve, his wife died and, heartbroken, he adopted her name and joined the army.

He was married before, but to Annie Braithwaite and in 1917, when he’d already been in the army for at least three years. She died in 1919. Perhaps the Gibson story has some truth in it, but perhaps there was no marriage, just a love affair. Richard clearly wasn’t rich or skilled (and was also possibly illegitimate), so he might not have been a great catch from a father's point of view. Richard was born in 1888 and so would have been 24 when war broke out – plenty old enough to have had a 'past'.

I guess we’ll never know the truth, but I think there’s some root for the stories there.

History of the York and Lancaster Regiment

It was formed in 1881 through the amalgamation of two other regiments:

                65th (2nd Yorkshire North Riding) Regiment

                84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment

The title of the regiment was derived not from the cities of York and Lancaster, or from the counties. Instead, the name came from the fact that it recruited from, amongst other places, landed properties owned by the Duchy of York and the Duchy of Lancaster. The regiment's recruiting area was in fact wholly within South Yorkshire (an area known as Hallamshire). Indeed, the regiment's Territorial Army battalion dropped its number and was known simply as The Hallamshire Battalion from 1924.

The new regiment saw service in both Egypt and Sudan immediately after its formation, and also during the Second Boer War, when it took part in the Relief of Ladysmith.

First World War

The regiment raised 22 battalions for service in the First World War, of which eight saw action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. During the war it suffered 48,650 casualties out of 57,000 men serving, with 8,814 killed or died of wounds (72 out of every 100 men being either wounded or killed). The regiment won four Victoria Crosses and 59 battle honours, the largest number for any English regiment during the war.

The 22 battalions consisted of the two regular battalions, the depot battalion, six Territorial Army battalions, nine Service, two Reserve, one Transport and one Labour battalion. 17 of the 22 battalions saw service overseas.

During the Battle of the Somme the Yorks and Lancs' eight battalions that went over the top on the first day suffered huge casualties, the three Pals battalions; 12th (Sheffield City), 13th and 14th Barnsley Pals Battalions, in particular suffering heavily. Eleven battalions of the regiment fought during the Somme campaign.

The regular 1st Battalion returned from service in India to be formed up as part of the 28th Division. The 28th Division consisted of regular battalions returning from overseas service and was shipped to France in January 1915. The 1st Battalion saw action in the Second Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Loos. The battalion was then shipped to the Balkans as part of the British Salonika Army where it would remain until the end of the war.^[2] While the battalion was still in France Private Samuel Harvey won the York and Lancs' first Victoria Cross since the regiment's creation in 1881.

The 2nd Battalion was stationed in Ireland with the 16th Brigade when war broke out. The battalion arrived on the Western Front in September 1914 with the 6th Division as part of the original British Expeditionary Force. The 2nd Battalion fought its first battle at Armentières during the Race to the Sea. The 2nd Battalion fought in most of the major battles of the war including the Battle of the Somme and spent the entire war serving in France and Flanders. Private John Caffrey, 2nd battalion, won the Victoria Cross in 1915.

These are the three medals awarded to Richard Little:

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred are the affectionate names given to the three WW1 campaign medals — The 1914 Star or 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal respectively. These medals were primarily awarded to the Old Contemptibles ( B.E.F. ). and by convention all three medals are worn together and in the same order from left to right when viewed from the front. The set of three medals or at least the British War Medal and the Victory Medal are the most likely medals to be found among family heirlooms.

When the WW1 medals were issued in the 1920's it coincided with a popular comic strip published by the Daily Mirror newspaper. It was written by Bertram J. Lamb (Uncle Dick), and drawn by the cartoonist Austin Bowen Payne (A.B. Payne). Pip was the dog, Squeak the penguin and Wilfred the young rabbit. It is believed that A. B. Payne's batman during the war had been nicknamed “Pip-squeak” and this is where the idea for the names of the dog and penguin came from. For some reason the three names of the characters became associated with the three campaign medals being issued at that time to many thousands of returning servicemen, and they stuck.

Mutt and Jeff”

The two British campaign medals commonly found as family heirlooms nicknamed Mutt and Jeff: the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

In a similar vein when only the British War Medal and Victory Medal are on display together they are sometimes known as “Mutt and Jeff”.

The 1914 Star

Established in April 1917.

Also known as 'Pip' or the 'Mons Star'.

This bronze medal award was authorized by King George V in April 1917 for those who had served in France or Belgium between 5^th August 1914 to midnight on 22^nd November 1914 inclusive. The award was open to officers and men of the British and Indian Expeditionary Forces, doctors and nurses as well as Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Navy Reserve and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve who served ashore with the Royal Naval Division in France or Belgium.

A narrow horizontal bronze clasp sewn onto the ribbon, bearing the dates '5th AUG. - 22nd NOV. 1914' shows that the recipient had actually served under fire of the enemy during that period. For every seven medals issued without a clasp there were approximately five issued with the clasp.

Recipients who received the medal with the clasp were also entitled to attach a small silver heraldic rose to the ribbon when just the ribbon was being worn.

The reverse is plain with the recipient's service number, rank, name and unit impressed on it.

It should be remembered that recipients of this medal were responsible for assisting the French to hold back the German army while new recruits could be trained and equipped. Collectively, they fully deserve a great deal of honour for their part in the first sixteen weeks of the Great War. This included the battle of Mons, the retreat to the Seine, the battles of Le Cateau, the Marne, the Aisne and the first battle of Ypres. There were approximately 378,000 1914 Stars issued.

The 1914-15 Star (this is what my granddad has)

Established in December 1918.

Also known as 'Pip'.

This bronze medal was authorized in 1918. It is very similar to the 1914 Star but it was issued to a much wider range of recipients. Broadly speaking it was awarded to all who served in any theatre of war against Germany between 5^th August 1914 and 31^st December 1915, except those eligible for the 1914 Star. Similarly, those who received the Africa General Service Medal or the Sudan 1910 Medal were not eligible for the award.

Like the 1914 Star, the 1914-15 Star was not awarded alone. The recipient had to have received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. The reverse is plain with the recipient's service number, rank, name and unit impressed on it.

An estimated 2.4 million of these medals were issued.

The British War Medal, 1914-18 (also this)

Established on 26^th July 1919.

Also known as 'Squeak'.

The silver or bronze medal was awarded to officers and men of the British and Imperial Forces who either entered a theatre of war or entered service overseas between 5^th August 1914 and 11^thNovember 1918 inclusive. This was later extended to services in Russia, Siberia and some other areas in 1919 and 1920.

Approximately 6.5 million British War Medals were issued. Approximately 6.4 million of these were the silver versions of this medal. Around 110,000 of a bronze version were issued mainly to Chinese, Maltese and Indian Labour Corps. The front of the medal depicts the head of George V.

The recipient's service number, rank, name and unit was impressed on the rim.

The Allied Victory Medal (and this)

Also known as 'Wilfred'

It was decided that each of the allies should each issue their own bronze victory medal with a similar design, similar equivalent wording and identical ribbon.

The British medal was designed by W. McMillan. The front depicts a winged classical figure representing victory.

Approximately 5.7 million victory medals were issued. Interestingly, eligibility for this medal was more restrictive and not everyone who received the British War Medal ('Squeak') also received the Victory Medal ('Wilfred'). However, in general, all recipients of 'Wilfred' also received 'Squeak' and all recipients of 'Pip' also received both 'Squeak' and 'Wilfred'.