WW1 British War & Victory Medal pair to ARTHUR BRADFORD of the 13th (Service) Battalion Rifle Brigade & Royal Masonic Hospital Patron Lodge Jewel awarded to son DENIS H BRADFORD of the ‘City of London Rifle Lodge’ – ARTHUR subject to gas attack in 1918

Stock Reference – MM-MED-0050

WW1 British War & Victory Medal pair awarded to ARTHUR BRADFORD of the 13^th (Service) Battalion the Rifle Brigade, & Royal Masonic Hospital Patron Lodge Jewel awarded to son DENIS H BRADFORD of the ‘City of London Rifle Lodge’ – ARTHUR subject to gas attack in 1918  

You are looking at a WW1 British War Medal and Victory Medal awarded to Private S-27370 of the 13^th (Service) Battalion the Rifle Brigade, along with a Royal Masonic Hospital Patron Lodge Jewel (Medal) awarded in 1986 to ARTHUR’S son DENIS H BRADFORD by the ‘City of London Rifle Lodge’ to whom he belonged, as follows:

British War Medal & Victory Medal inscribed ‘S-27370 PTE. A.BRADFORD. RIF. BRIG.’

Royal Masonic Hospital Patron Lodge Jewel (Medal) inscribed ‘City of London Rifle Lodge – No 5606 – DENIS.H.BRADFORD – 11^th March 1986 for Charitable Services’ with ‘Patron’ bar (originally attached but now detached from the ribbon)

ARTHUR was born c1897/98, and he served as a rifleman with the 13^th Battalion the Rifle Brigade, and from his service number, he is believed to have enlisted around August-September 1916 and appears to have arrived in France a short time later, probably around September that same year.

According to the available military records, on the 24^th of February 1917, Rifleman ARTHUR BRADFORD of ‘D’ Coy 13^th Battalion was evacuated from ‘Loos’ and taken to the No 6 Casualty Clearing Station at Barlin. He was suffering from ‘Pyrexia of Unknown Origin’, a standard description often used by medical personnel to cover ‘Trench Fever’, a highly infectious disease that passed between soldiers living and operating in crowded trench conditions, and two days later, on the 26^th of February, he was transferred from sick convoy to No. 20 Ambulance Train and eventually taken to the 18^th General Hospital (Royal Naval Division) at Camiers near Etaples on the French Coast.

Lance Corporal A BRADFORD also appears twice in the War Office Daily Lists, the first, WO Daily List No. 5405 dated the 1^st of November 1917, and the second, WO Daily List No. 5560 dated the 8^th of May 1918, and on both occasions, he is listed as ‘wounded’, with his next of kin address recorded as Kilburn in London.

In relation to his later appearance in the WO daily lists, there is a corresponding entry in the 13^th Battalion’s war diary, in a battalion daily casualty list dated the 12^th of April 1918, that lists Lance Corporal ARTHUR BRADFORD as having been wounded on the 7^th of April, however, he also appears in a slightly later casualty list dated the 15^th of April, with an amendment to the effect that he was wounded, but with ‘GAS’ recorded in brackets, and with a number of other soldiers also appearing in the same list with their entries amended to reflect injury through gas that in all of their cases, took place on the 6^th of April....This later list also tells us it was reported by the Officer Commanding 49^th Field Ambulance.

According to their associated war diary, from the 5^th to the 12^th of April 1918, the 13^th Battalion were in the Gommecourt area of France during the final stages of the German Spring Offensive, where they were defending trenches and repelling German attempts to advance on other key locations such as Bucquoy and Rossignol Wood. The battalion defended their positions well but sustained casualties as they did, including the loss of their Commanding Officer Lt. Colonel W.R.STEWART who was killed by enemy sniper as he was moving around front line trenches.

During their time at Gommecourt, troops were subject to heavy artillery bombardment, and this included the use of mustard and phosgene gas shells, sometimes mixed with high explosives for extra impact, and it has to be assumed ARTHUR sustained his injury(s) as a result of one of these gas attacks, and he was taken to the 49^th Field Ambulance who supported the neighbouring 16^th (Irish) Division and were operating out of the nearby village of Hebuterne.

As to the extent of ARTHUR’S injury, of the damage the gas attack caused to him, well that cannot be established, however, when he died in 1972, his widow applied to the DHSS for a widow’s pension, providing her husband’s wartime service details, and this suggests ARTHUR’S military service resulted in some form of entitlement or benefit coming to him after he left the army, and may have had relevance to his widow after his death.

ARTHUR ERNEST BRADFORD, the son of ALFRED and LYDIA BRADFORD of Kilburn, was born in 1897 and baptised in 1899. He married DOROTHY GUNN in 1922 and they had one child, DENIS H BRADFORD who was born in 1926.

DENIS H BRADFORD is the member of the City of London Rifle that was formed in 1936 by members of the ‘6^th City of London Rifles’, and he was awarded the Royal Masonic Hospital Patron Lodge Jewel (Medal) in 1986, and there is a possibility, because he does not appear to have any military service himself, that his father ARTHUR may have been a member of the lodge originally, because he had connection to a ‘Rifles’ regiment, and his son may have followed him into it when of an age to do so.

SELLER NOTE = Supporting documentation obtained and / or created during this research will be provided.