Death plaque question

[Guest cicero]

Hello everybody.

First i like to introduce myself.

I'm Adrian,36 year old and living in Belgium. (so forgive me my bad English).

I'm a interested in ww1 history and collect and preserve the artifacts from that period.

But as a newbie i would like to start with a question concerning my Death plaque in my collection. (see picture)

As i understand,there is a difference between the H (in HE) and de H (in Honour) for RN (Royal Navy?) and RA (Royal Artillery?) plaque's.

The H in the Army type's don't have those difference,correct?

So i have this plaque with the difference in the 'H' and it's is marked on the back with a W with a line across the central peak creating an A. (Woolwich Arsenal)

May i assume that this plaque is from a killed Royal Navy or Artillery man?

Anyway,every help,opinion and info is highly welcome about my plaque.

Thanks,Adrian.

[CROONAERT]

Hi Adrian and welcome to the forum.

A quick glance at the CWGC website reveals no "G.Howard" or "George Howard"s on their files who served in the navy, so you can practically wipe this idea off. There are 25+ who served in the armies of Great Britain, South Africa and Australia though.

(I've never heard of a difference in the plaques for the Royal Artillery before, can anyone expand on this for me?)

Dave.

[Guest cicero]

Thanks for the welcome and info Croonaert.

Adrian.

[David_Bluestein]

Hi Adrian and welcome to the forum,

The only distinguishing factors on a plaque that may help identify the man is the H's. Memorial Plaque's named to members of the Navy show a much narrower H in 'He Died...." (See photo below of a Navy Memorial Plaque Detail). There are no regiment or corps distinctions.

Your George Howard is most definitely not naval, and is one of the 25+ fatalities that Croonaert has eluded too.

Best regards

David

[Guest cicero]

Thanks David for the info about the H's etc.

This is of great help.

Adrian

[ypresman]

Hi

On that note, I picked up a box of brass at a local auction for £7, purely for the brass door knockers of ww1 soldiers. Bargain I thought, but when I got it home, I found 2 Death Plaques in the bottom of the box!! . Anyway, looked up Walter Sweeney & Henry Crook, & imagine to my suprise there was twenty trillion of them....!!! How, if any, can you tell the difference? I noticed a different no. between the lions hind leg and tail. Has this any meaning at all??

[David_Bluestein]

First, brilliant find. What dreams are made of!

Now onto your plaques: The numbers are still a matter of debate and speculation by historians. However the popular consensus is they were batch numbers for shipment purposes.

With that said, unfortunately, like George Howard your men are also known only unto God. There is no known way of distinguishing them from the other like-names.

There will always be a very powerful and mysterious thing about these kinds of plaques, like with the unknown soldier...He is right there in front of us, but we will never know who he is.

[ypresman]

David

Sir, Many thanks for that, so basically we've no way of finding out then....

Shame..

[Guest Pete Wood]

As David and others have pointed out, there are many theories (and exceptions).

Having looked at loads of plaques with a narrow H, it is OFTEN the case that these plaques are to Navy casualties. But, it is also common to find that the plaques with narrow H's are quite common to soldiers of the Royal Artillery and London Regiments.

It is not quite so common, but FAR from unusual, to also find a narrow H for soldiers from all other regiments. There does not, now, appear to be any reason for this.

The artist who designed the plaque, Edward Carter Preston, was paid to 'adjust' the master to take a narrow H. This was so that a 'S' could be inserted - to make space for SHE DIED as well as HE DIED.

My 'current' theory (read best guess) is that casualties who died up until the middle of 1915 had plaques made by Acton (so the 'batch number' of 1-51 is to the left of the lion's rear paw). The later casualties with the number between the paw and lion's tail were made at Woolwich, and should also have WA stamped on the reverse of the plaque.

Don't forget, though, that a lot of plaques were produced with errors. The spelling is often incorrect, or the second forename has been omitted etc. Worse, it has now been proven that the next of kin of civilians who died while on 'war service' often had plaques made for them. So you might have more than 25 possibilities.

In other words, the only thing you can be certain of is that your plaques are Woolwich-made. BUt even if there was a Navy casualty on the CWGC register with this name, he could PROBABLY be discounted - as can any person who died after the middle of 1915.

Probably.....