CYRIL FLETCHER ~ Where have Cyril Fletcher’s war medals been?

70851 – CYRIL FLETCHER       

A British War Medal and Victory Medal arrived at MRNZ in late December 2014 amidst the shambles that was my partially stripped house being readied for a makeover before making relocating to Nelson. 

The two medals had been sent from Patricia of Hastings whose initial email inquiry had said that she had found the medals named to 70851 PTE C. FLETCHER N.Z.E.F. with her deceased father’s war medals but could not establish any link in the family to that name. 

My initial investigation into Cyril’s ancestry and movements via the Christchurch Electoral Rolls were reasonably easy to follow with the exception there was a distinct lack of records relating to his birth, his mother and movements after 1919, all fairly essential in stablishing one’s identity and to avoid confusing with others of the same name.  Each gap I tried to fill drew a blank.  Where had Cyril come from and where did he go after WW1?  This could be the key to tracing his medals. 

As a result of the move and work ahead of me, I put any further work on this case on the back burner until I had some clear air, and besides, there were some pressing (and slightly easier I have to admit) cases to research that ‘jumped’ the cue – I was trying to get some ‘runs on the board’ (medal returns) to establish MRNZ as a credible and successful service.

FLETCHER family

I took up the case again in December last year with my start point being Cyril’s AWM Cenotaph file which in fact revealed little.  His parents were recorded as Gardener, Henry Thomas and Mary Jane FLETCHER of Perth Street, Richmond, Christchurch.  By following successive Electoral Rolls I learned Henry Thomas had come from a large family who had resided in Upper Riccarton.

The head of the Fletcher family at that time was Henry Thomas FLETCHER (Snr.), a Labourer, had immigrated from Somerset, England in the 1860s with his wife Rhoda Ellen, nee BARNETT, together with their children Ralph, Eliza, Margaret, Sarah Jane & Henry Thomas (Jnr) who had all been born in Western-Super-Mare, Essex.   The family had eventually settled in Upper Riccarton by the 1880s.

Henry Thomas Fletcher (Jnr) – hereafter referred to as Henry T. to differentiate from his father) was Henry and Rhoda’s eldest son who prior to his marriage worked variously as a Labourer and Coachman.  In 1900 Henry T. (then a Gardener) married Mary Jane BROWN, she being the third eldest child of twelve born in Fettlington, Northumberland in 1878 to parents Thomas and Joan BROWN, nee WEATHERBURN.   It is believed Mary Jane Brown  emigrated to NZ around 1897.  On her arrival in Wellington, she had initially settled herself there and sought domestic work.  At some point before 1900 Mary Jane had gone to Christchurch and had taken a position as a domestic servant in the suburb of Dallington.  While here, she met fellow English migrant Henry Thomas FLETCHER and a relationship flourished.  On 3 May 1900, Mary Jane Brown and Henry Thomas Fletcher married at the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Avonside in Christchurch.  Henry and Mary would have six children during their marriage – Violet May (1901), Henry Maitland “Snow” (1903), Leonard (1905), Olive Myrtle (1906), Cyril (1908) and Vera Fletcher (1910).  

In 1903 Henry, Mary, five year old Cyril and baby Violet moved into a house at 52 Perth Street, Richmond, the home they lived in for the remained of their lives. Mary Fletcher died in 1966 and husband Henry in 1972.  

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Called up for war

During his early working life young Cyril Fletcher worked as a Farm Hand and later as a Shepherd on some of the many local farms that proliferated in the north and east of Christchurch at that time.  The Wylie Brothers of Richmond were builders and contractors who established established their business at number 58 Perth Street, just a few yards from the Fletcher’s residence.  Cyril had secured a job working for the Wylie’s prior to and during the early years of World War 1 until he was balloted for war service in August 1918.

Cyril Fletcher had first been called up for military service in July 1916 however was found to be unfit and so was rejected.  By August 1917 reinforcement troops were in very short supply and many of those initially medically rejected for service, were reassessed and found to be “Fit” for war service. 

Twenty year old 70851 Private Cyril Fletcher was one such soldier who had passed re-assessment.  Pte. Fletcher was enlisted into the 2nd Battalion of the Canterbury Infantry Regiment (Reserve) at Trentham Camp on 12 Nov 1917 to begin three months of basic soldier training at Featherston Camp in December.  On 23 April 1918, the 36th Reinforcements embarked on the HMNZT Willochra for Egypt.  Disembarking at Suez, the reinforcements were accommodated at the Australian Camp on the Suez Canal for the following five weeks until their troop ship arrived to take them to England.  On 4 July the 36th Reinforcements were embarked onto the SS Ormond at the port of Alexandria and sailed for Southampton, a voyage that took two weeks.  Arriving on the 18th, the men were entrained for the NZ depot at Sling Camp located on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.   Three months of training followed in preparation for joining their units at Etaples prior to going into the field in France. 

Pte. Fletcher embarked for France on 24 October 1918.  The majority of NZ troops arriving in France (and when departing) transited through the NZ Infantry & General Base Depot (NZI & GBD) which was contained within a march larger camp depot at Etaples.  The Etaples Camp depot had the capacity for 100,000 men.  Here the reinforcements maintained their edge with continued training and fitness while preparing their equipment and waiting their turn to be moved to the front.  While at Etaples, Pte. Fletcher was assigned to No 2 Company of the 2nd Canterbury Infantry Regiment (CIR) on 2 Nov 1918, nine days prior to the Armistice. 

In the field, this was a particularly torrid time for the NZ Division as they would fight their last battles of World War 1 at Sambre, through the Mormal Forest, and at Le Quesnoy, starting on November 4th.   Finally, the guns fell silent when the Armistice was declared at 11.00am on the 11th of November, 1918.   

With the war over all soldiers were anxious to go home however the priority for returning to New Zealand was to be the sick and wounded first, followed by those who had been in combat, and then the remainder based upon the time spent overseas, the longest serving to the least amount of time.   Shipping availability caused long delays and riots in some cases occurred as a result.

Following the Armistice there was much to do.  The most recent arrivals in France and England were invariably employed with dismantling and restoring facilities, recovering, cleaning and repatriating war equipment and stores that was being returned to NZ, among a myriad of other routine tasks such as sentries and fire piquets.   As Pte. Fletcher had been in France for a total of 14 days before the Armistice took effect, he was attached for employment to No.4 NZ Veterinary Hospital at Calais on 10 December and remained there until 3 May 1919 before returning Sling Camp to prepare for his return to NZ.   The onset of the Spanish Flu epidemic throughout Europe from October 1918 onwards was also taking a huge toll on manpower with both sickness and death.  Fortunately Pte. Fletcher managed to survive this dangerous period.  Finally, on 4 July he was embarked onto the Port Hacking and sailed for NZ on 10 July, arriving in Wellington on 20 August.  Pte. Cyril Fletcher was discharged from the NZEF on 17 September 1919 after 1 year and 102 days overseas.  For his service he was awarded the British War Medal, 1914-18 and the Victory Medal.  Cyril Fletcher, a retired Council employee, died in Christchurch at 73 years of age in 1970.  

 

Where had Cyril’s medal been?

Henry George HAY was born in Dec 1896 at Leeston, Canterbury to parents Annie McCONKEY and Harry Morris HAY.  Henry had worked on his father’s farm at Leeston before he was balloted for war service in 1917.  50336, Trooper Henry George HAY, Canterbury Mounted Rifles, 30^th Reinforcements, NZ Rifle Brigade embarked in Nov 1917 and served overseas for almost two years, until October 1919.  After the war Henry had lived in and around Hastings working variously as a private hotel keeper, caretaker, driver and a storeman until his death at Hastings in 1980.

Following Henry Hay’s death, his daughter-in-law Patricia had found the First World War medals of Pte. Cyril Fletcher in his Henry’s personal belongings.  Finding war medals in deceased persons possessions, particularly WW1 medals as they are named, is a reasonably common occurrence for MRNZ with the reasons for the ownership being many and varied.  In this particular case, without any known family connection between the two men, I first collected information from their NZEF service that could have pointed towards Cyril and Henry Hay knowing each other, or becoming mates as a result of their service.  

Henry Hay had been born just eight months prior to Cyril (both in 1897) so age-wise, they were contemporaries.  Henry was a Farm Hand and Cyril a Farm Hand/Shepherd at the time of their enlistment.  Both men were Cantabrians, and both had enlisted at similar times (dates) as private soldiers, probably at the same place in Christchurch – King Edward Barracks.  Both men embarked for England within a few months of each other, Henry with the Canterbury Mounted Rifles with the 30^th Reinforcements, and Cyril with Canterbury Infantry Regiment’s 36^th Reinforcements.  Both men had lived at the same NZ camp on arrived in England – Sling Camp, and Henry’s period of service in France overlapped Cyril’s.  Henry was a Mounted Rifleman while Cyril had been seconded after the Armistice to the NZ Veterinary Hospital for general duties that involved managing and maintaining the mounted trooper’s horses prior to them being deployed to the front line.  Any of these circumstances I believe could have bought both men into contact.  Added to this is the patriotic “Cantabrian” loyalty and comradeship that no doubt arose from being associated with the province, all of which gave reason and opportunity for the soldiers from Canterbury to form close friendships.  

The following suggests how Henry Hay may have come into the possession of Cyril’s medals:

• Cyril may have lost them/had them stolen and somehow Henry Hay had come into contact with them.
• Cyril died in 1970 and Henry Hay ten years later in 1980, both were Canterbury residents.  If they had been mates it is  a possibility that Cyril had gifted his medals to his friend before he (Cyril) died.  This was a common practice for men who had no descendant family.  Medals were also donated to a soldier’s RSA.
• As Cyril did not appear to have a family and, if indeed he and Henry Hay were friends, Henry could have been the beneficiary of Cyril’s Will, another common practice for soldiers who were on their own.   
• The converse of all the above could also be true – that there was no post war connection between Cyril and Henry at all.  The medals may have been a chance find, or a casual purchase from second hand shop or market?  

The facts of how Cyril’s medals finished up in the personal effects of Patrica’s father will probably forever remain a mystery however, I am glad to say that finding a descendant of Cyril’s to return them to, fortunately was a slightly easier problem to solve. 

Reuniting Cyril’s medals

I made several inquiries of Ancestry family tree authors that contained Cyril’s father Henry T. Fletcher but did not receive any new information.  Cyril’s mother Mary Jane was also an enigma – no obvious records that I could attribute to her or her family in New Zealand (but some of whom I did locate in England).  I had been trawling around the internet looking for possible connections to Cyril through his siblings when … bingo !  One of my searches latched on to the Wiki Tree website and the family of one John Bramwell COHEN, formerly of Black’s Point, Reefton.  In 1926 John B. Cohen married Cyril’s sister Violet May (Fletcher) Cohen, the eldest and first born child of Henry T. and Mary Jane Fletcher.  From this entry I was then able to trace their only son Desmond COHEN and  wife Elizabeth Lorraine HIRST, who in turn led me to one of their sons, Tony COHEN, the author of the Wiki Tree entry. 

The medals of 70851 Pte. Cyril Fletcher have now been returned to Fletcher family ownership, namely Cyril’s grand-nephew Tony Cohen.

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To Patrica, my thanks for sending the medals to MRNZ and for your patience whilst the case was resolved.

The reunited medal tally is now 103.