Can you help solve mystery of medals?

5:00pm Saturday 13th September 2008

Comments (2)   Have your say »

By Richard Vernalls »

WORCESTERSHIRE families are being asked to help solve the mystery of two soldiers and a 100-year-old war medal.

The King Edward VII medal was awarded to a Private L Busby of the 2nd battalion, Worcestershire Regiment, for serving in the Boer War.

The medal, known as the KSA, is inscribed with Mr Busby’s Army number (3408) but nothing more is known of him.

It now belongs to Helen Lawrence, of Neath, in South Wales, whose great-grandfather Reese Davies also served in the 1900 - 1902 conflict with the Imperial Yeomanry.

But research into Mr Davies’ records shows he was never entitled to the KSA, having not served a minimum 18 months in South Africa, where British Imperial troops were fighting descendants of Dutch settlers at the time.

Mrs Lawrence has no idea where Mr Busby’s medal came from but says it has always been kept together with her great-grandfather’s own inscribed Boer War medal, which displays Queen Victoria – called the QSA.

Both medals appear in a post-war sepia photograph of Mr Davies taken when he was a senior police officer in Glamorgan Constabulary.

But, according to military historians, Busby would have also received the QSA alongside his King’s medal, throwing up the puzzle of where his other medal is now and how Mr Davies came to have another man’s medal.

Mrs Lawrence said: “Pte Busby did survive the war but we don’t know how his medal came to be in the family.

“If anybody knows of him, hopefully they can shed some light on the story.”

The mother-of-two contacted your Worcester News and military researchers including members of the Worcestershire Regimental Museum, hoping someone can shed light on the mystery.

John Lowles, one of the museum’s volunteer historians, said: “Looking at Pte Busby’s regimental number I would say he enlisted in about 1892, but even that is pure speculation.” Meurig Jones, who runs website casus-belli.co.uk, has been digging into army records held at the National Archives, in Surrey.

“We don’t know anything about Pte Busby, although he could have served in World War One,” he said.

“What I have found is that Davies was not entitled to a KSA medal. I imagine he acquired Pte Busby’s somehow.” He added medals were often given by comrades in arms in gratitude, or pawned for their high silver content.

If you can help, e-mail rv@worcesternews.co.uk or call 01905 742258.