WW1 British War & Mercantile Marine Medals to JAMES PROVIS of Port Isaac Cornwall. Served on ROSS and HMHS LIBERTY

Here on offer is a really nice pair of original WW1 medals issued to a JAMES POVIS who served as a Merchant Navy Seaman on ROSS and HMHS LIBERTY.

He was born in 1891 in Port Isaac, Cornwall and from my limited research seems to have survived WW1.

The medals consist of a Silver (with age patina)

WW1 BRITISH WAR MEDAL

and a bronze

MERCANTILE MARINE MEDAL,

both full size, and correctly named to

JAMES PROVIS

The medals are in excellent issued condition, complete with their coloured correct ribbons, which have been cut short and are grubby.

The medals have the following stamped on their lower rims:

JAMES PROVIS

The Mercantile Marine medal was issued by the Board of Trade to all nationalities and ranks of men and women who sailed through a danger zone with the Merchant Navy, including those employed on Merchant Navy vessels by the Royal Navy or Merchant Fleet Auxilliary and those employed as pilots, lighthouse vessels, cable ships or fishermen, between 04.08.1914 and 11.11.1918.
For a Merchant Navy member to qualify for a further British War Medal required 6 months at sea between the same dates. If a group contains further medals (for example a Victory Medal or a "Star"), this was for service outside of the Merchant Navy.
Just over 250,00 Mercantile Marine Medals were produced, yet only 133,345 were issued. This is because seaman had to apply for their medal and many did not. Also, seaman came from all over the world and had no fixed address.

The National Archives have his Medal Records online, which I have printed off and will be included with his medals.

Interestingly they show both the Mercantile and British medals where issued on 4/4/21, but there is an entry against the British medal that states ‘not eligible from diary’, but then there is a ‘tick’ and a date 17/8/27, which must be the date it was finally approved?

I have also found out from the National Maritime Museum that he was on the crew list in 1915, aged 23, of the coal transport vessel “ROSS”, registered in Cardiff in 1907.

Then at the age of 26, he is shown on the crew list for the hospital ship, HMHS LIBERTY which a large steam yacht, owned by Lord Tredegar and loaned to the Admiralty as a hospital ship, and fitted out as such in 1914. She had been built by Ramage & Ferguson at Leith at 1908, and measured 1571 tons. She was beautifully fitted out as a yacht and no doubt the sick and wounded men she carried would have enjoyed the benefits of some of her facilities.
Unusually, she was a Royal Navy hospital ship. Most hospital ships were controlled by the army under the red ensign with a merchant service crew and Army personnel (RAMC and QARINC) for medical staff, but when she was first in service the idea was that she could care for sailors in remote anchorages, and the horrific number of wounded soldiers who were to need care later in the year was then totally unexpected.
Besides serving as a base hospital ship, the Liberty took part in the Dardanelles Campaign. For some reason she was redefined as an auxiliary patrol yacht for a while in 1915, probably when at Gallipoli, but reverted to being a hospital ship later the same year. It is possible that the temporary change was simply because she was diverted to a task not compatible with her legal status as a non-combatant vessel with the protection of international conventions, or possibly because the Turks had said they would not recognise the Red Cross. She later became a hospital carrier. In October 1918 she was renamed Liberty IV and was returned to her owner in 1919.

A great set of medals worth further research.

Please see my pictures for the details of the condition, which complement this description.

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Code: 50090