A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners

Pair: Fireman F. J. Guidrey, Mercantile Marine, who lost his life when the S.S. Feltria was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland in May 1917

British War Medal 1914-20 (Francis J. Guidrey); Mercantile Marine War Medal 1914-18 (Frances J. Guidrey), note spelling of first given name, together with the recipient’s Memorial Plaque 1914-18 (Francis John Guidrey), good very fine (3)
£120-150

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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Francis John Guidrey, who was born in Marylebone, London, in December 1881, first went to sea in the Mercantile Marine around 1910. Joining the Cunard steamer Feltria in early 1917, he was among those lost when she was torpedoed eight miles S.E. from Mine Head on the S.E. coast of Ireland on 5 May of that year - the explosion smashed the lifeboats on the ship’s port side and the resultant loss of life was heavy, namely the Master and 44 of his crew. The following day, 21 survivors were picked up, but Guidrey was not among them, although his body was recovered and interred in a cemetery in Queenstown. His widow claimed his British War and Mercantile Marine War Medals in 1923.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including telegram from Cunard to the recipient’s wife, dated 7 May 1917, confirming his death - ‘body, J. Guidrey, Fireman, identified Queenstown’; a subsequent legal letter also addressed to her confirming that £300 had been paid into Bristol Crown Court ‘in satisfaction of your claim under the Workmen’s Compensation Act’, dated 8 June 1917; and a fine studio portrait photograph.