13 December 2016

Percival James Chandos Mellor

It often mystifies me how medals end up where there do. Especially when they originate from the other side of the world and there is no obvious explication as to how they got to Australia.
The BWM awarded to 329149 Sapper Percival James Chandos Mellor was sent to me by the Narrogin RSL. Narrogin is a small farming community about 200km south east of Perth but when I had a close look at Percival's history there is no link with this part of Australia.
Percival was a 42 year old, single schoolmaster from Birmingham UK, when he enlisted in August 1918. His corps was the Royal Engineers and he arrived in France just before the armistice.
Percival married in 1929 aged 53 but there is no other record I could find until the probate of his will in 1960. His estate was valued at a little over 3000GBP and the beneficiary was named as Andrew John Perry, schoolmaster. The only other lead I found was on an Ancestry tree which put me in contact with the family of Percival's brother.
Without some serious research I don't think that I'll be able to work out how the medal got to Narrogin. Thanks to Lorraine of the Narrogin RSL who trusted me to complete this research on their behalf.
The returned medal tally is now 1982.

1 comment:

  1. Glyn, another job well done. Many thanks for your efforts.
    Lorraine Larment
    Narrogin RSL

    ReplyDelete