A few weeks ago I chanced upon a WW1 trio to a recipient of the Military Medal - although this was missing from the set. Included with the medals was his Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) cap-badge and his Machine Gun Corps cap-badge and shoulder titles.
I don't as a rule collect medals. But the seller had been trying to sell them for a while, and had dropped the price yet again. He was also threatening to split the items up if a buyer couldn't be found. It would have been a shame for that to happen, so on an impulse I decided to buy them.
The previous owner had done some research, but I decided to do some further work myself.
Private Barclay James Stewart enlisted with the 1/6th Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) Territorial Battalion on the 7th March 1914. He was sent to Belgium on 2nd May 1915. And on the 18th August 1915 he was slightly wounded in the neck.
In March 1916 he was sent back to England and transferred to 103 Coy Machine Gun Corps on 25th July 1916. Pte Stewart then returned to France on 13th September 1916.
On the 28th October he was fined five day's pay by the OC 103 Coy for 'Smoking in the trenches whilst on standby duty.'
In 1917 he took part in the battle of Arras. On the 17th July 1917 his award of the Military Medal was gazetted. On the 21st September he received a gunshot wound to the leg and was hospitalised. In October he was transferred to 91 Coy MGC and remained with them until he was demobilised in 1919.
The trio of medals are the original one's issued to Pte Stewart. But I took the decision to add a 'replacement quality' copy of the MM to finish off the medal grouping. I didn't have his name engraved on the medal, as I didn't want any future owner of the items to think he had the original MM.
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