WW1 Victory Medal - With a Story

**Steelhead10** · 03-31-2024, 11:03 PM

Hi all,

I picked this one up fairly recently in a collectibles shop on my travels. It was one of those pieces that I felt drawn to as if something had guided me to it as it was tucked away inside a cabinet. My display space has become more limited and so I've begun to limit the amount of single medals I pick up, often aiming more for the groups that can be displayed together. However, on this occasion, it was largely due to the unit, Notts & Derbys or the Sherwood Foresters, which would be my local regiment and one that my Great Grandad Thomas Garner was attached to with the Home Guard.
This medal is inscribed to 2171 Pte. S. Wood. Notts & Derbys.

Private Samuel Wood was initially part of 1/7th Territorial Sherwood Foresters, also known as the Robin Hoods. Enlisting on either 18/19th May 1914 and first serving in France from 28th February 1915 when the 1/7th landed with the 46th Division; which saw fighting at the Battle of Hohenzollern Redoubt. When Pte. Wood first went overseas he was part of 1 Platoon, A Company (This comes from a Diary of a Sergeant that the family have found). Unfortunately, as Private Wood served in multiple regiments it is difficult to gauge where exactly he would have been however a newspaper article from 24th March 1916 confirms he was still a part of 1/7th at this time, although the record of his admission and discharge do not appear to have survived.

Private Wood also served with the A.S.C (T/384498) and North Staffs (235159) (Another of my Great Grandads, Ralph Arthur Cholerton served with these before, during, and after WW1).
Unfortunately, there was no ribbon, the medals have been split at some point in their history and very little survives in terms of Private Woods service. There's a single Forces War Records entry that I can find, his Medal Index Card, and the aforementioned newspaper article from 24th March 1916 that states he was in Bagthorpe Military Hospital (later becoming Nottingham City Hospital).

There is more to the story attached to this medal I post today, however, and that is in its modern history. Like most collectors on here, I went about searching for the name on the medal and came across an old post from a relative of Samuel's. I decided to reach out to them and found out that the family was still local. Upon finding that the family were greatly interested in the medal, and had been searching for them for approximately 20 years, I set about arranging to return it to the family. It's the sort of thing I would have hoped for if anyone had found one of my relative's medals.

Today I dropped the medal off with the family, it's made even more poignant that the family does not have any surviving photographs of Samuel.

I have gained permission from the family to post the story here.

Matt