Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Acting Sergeant T. S. Dibnah, Canadian Machine Gun Brigade, who died in 1925 as a direct consequence of the effects of the War, one of the last recipient’s of a Memorial Plaque

British War and Victory Medals (412714 A. Sjt. T. S. Dibnah. C.M.G. Bde.); Memorial Plaque (Thomas Stanley Dibnah) in original registered forwarding envelope; Canadian Memorial Cross (412714 A-Sgt. T. S. Dibnah), on silver chain, in box of issue, extremely fine (4) £240-£280

Dix Noonan Webb, July 2004.

Thomas Stanley Dibnah was born in Hull, England, in November 1890. He attested into the Canadian Expeditionary Force in March 1915, aged 24 years, and served on the Western Front with the 4th Canadian Machine Gun Corps in early 1916. Advanced Corporal in the Field, he was wounded on 4 August in the same year. His service record notes his subsequent transferral to 5th Canadian Field Ambulance, and thence to No. 12 Casualty Clearing Station, but by the middle of September he had been returned to active duty with the 2nd Battalion. Quickly advanced to Lance-Sergeant, he remained in France until May 1918, when he was evacuated as a result of ill health to England. Dibnah returned to Canada in August 1919, having found himself an English bride whom he had married at Seaford, Sussex, in February of the same year. Remarkably, the existence of the Memorial Plaque and Canadian Memorial Cross indicates that the Canadian authorities were satisfied that Dibnah’s death on 19 March 1925 was a direct consequence of his War service many years earlier.

Sold with a gold-plated half-hunter Regina pocket watch, engraved ‘Presented to Sergeant Thomas S. Dibnah by the Township of Mariposa for service in Great War 1914-1919’, with initials engraved on reverse, in case of issue, a Victoria County Tribute Medal (Sgt. T. S. Dibnah, 2nd Bn. C.M.G.C.); a hallmarked silver named N.M.R.C. shooting medallion dated March 1991; a photograph of a couple with the recipient in uniform; and copied service papers.