MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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This might be pushing the abilities of the STWiki, but I’ve recently come into possession of a number of old family photos, that I’ve never seen before, and one of them, of my grandfather when he was young, shows him wearing a fairly large label badge, oval, with a crown on top. I’ve tried to use a magnifying app, but that just emphasised the flaws in the print, which is an actual photo on a post card base, quite common at the time, likely early 1900’s - he was 19 in 1911, according to the census form I have a copy of.
Anyone got a clue?
A tough one. Although with the badge having the crown i think it means the badge stands for "The Royal something something"
So its probably not impossible to narrow down as there will definitely be records.
The pocket square is also interesting, it kinda looks like a bucket and spade, a union or society?
Any idea what he did for a living? That might help in narrowing it down.
Good point.
Occupation.
And also location. It almost looks like a partick constabulary badge it isn't but for instance if you know the location and anything else about him it would narrow down branches/regiments/constabulary's.
He'll have a war record i assume, they include occupation etc.
He doesn't look old enough to be a veteran wearing a regiment badge.
Any connection to something like a Rotary/Oddfellows charity group perhaps?
Anyone swearing allegiance to the crown:
Police, navy, army, not the RAF - it didn't exist in 1911, etc,
The pocket square is also interesting, it kinda looks like a bucket and spade, a union or society?
I think thats also a crown.
Does look a lot like a variant of one of on war service lapel badge.
My first thought was a bucket & spade/trowel when looking at the handkerchief. It's worth opening the image in its own tab, bypassing the STW resolution limits, as it's much bigger & you can zoom in.
Or upload the actual size version
Kind of looks like a ships steward, maybe first class
It could be a badge worn by civilians involved with essential work during WW1 “on war service”
Does look a lot like a variant of one ofon war servicelapel badge.
looks exactly like it to me, have we found a winner?
My first thought was Home Guard. There is one similar in shape on this website https://militarybadgecollection.com/2010/11/25/home-front-home-guard-badges.htm
It could be a badge worn by civilians involved with essential work during WW1 “on war service”
Scrolling through this lapel+badge search
certainly looks like it, especially the one on page 2 with the point at the bottom of the shield
While i agree that temudgin is correct i do think its abot unfair that dossonance has not been acknowledged for being correct first 🤣
I reckon its one of these. Glad no one got in before me! What do I win...
😜
The pocket square is also interesting, it kinda looks like a bucket and spade, a union or society?
🤣 Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s a pair of folded spectacles tucked into his top pocket!
I’ve used a fairly high-power magnifying glass on the badge, and it’s possible to make out lettering all around the outside edge, but it’s not possible to make out what’s on the square in the middle, without some sort of reference. 🤷🏼♂️
John was my grandfather, according to the 1911 Census, he was 19, living with his parents and worked in the brewery* in the village.
I don’t have much detailed information available about my family from that period, like what organisations he might have been a member of - I’m still finding out stuff that I was unaware of, like where my dad was born. My grandparents, when I was little, lived in Ford, on the A420 about four miles from where I live, but it turns out, from the 1921 census, that he was actually born in Slaughterford, where my great grandparents lived.
I’ve been given a large bag of family history stuff, a lot pertaining to another family connection to the Drake family in Dorset, which included Sir Francis Drake, but there were a big bunch of them!
I’ve got a lot of digging to do, not helped by the fact my dad died when I was 13, so there’s a lot of family history he was never able to pass on in detail to me.
One thing I’ve been given was a Christmas card he sent home from Malaya, as it was then, where he was stationed with the RAF.
Not long after, he became a Japanese PoW.
Particularly poignant today, on VJ Day…
*The brewery has been converted into a house, very sensitively so, and is owned by Dominic West, the actor.
Pretty certain that ads678 has it! I have the original photo print, like many around that time it’s actually a photograph postcard, and no better quality available, but comparing with a glass to the photo ads has posted, it couldn’t be anything else. Brilliant job, yet again the STW hive mind has come up trumps again!
I’m chuffed about this, it’s a small thing, and a long time ago, but it clarifies a little more about my family.
Thanks again for the sleuthing, a great effort, everyone, and I’m very pleased to find out what it means. I’d been talking to a mate about it, and showed him the photo, and he mentioned something that I hadn’t thought of; people with jobs in areas that were considered important to the war effort were issued badges to prove it, to avoid being given white feathers, John worked in the village brewery, then the paper mill, both would have been important so that’s almost certainly why he was wearing it in that photo.
There’s a lot of my family history on my dad’s side that’s rather opaque to me, that I never had a chance to discuss as I got older, I’m having to fill in some of the details late in life as I have few relatives left to ask.
Cheers! 👍🏼
John worked in the village brewery,
I thought brewers would have been protected. But they weren't. The government clamped down on alcohol production and conscripted heavily from the breweries. The industry took a huge hit.