TOPIC:

Dear all,

I am a french collector who received three medals awarded to 5230 Sergeant L. Ryan Welsh Regt (all three this was written on the rim).
The first medal is a QSA with clasps : Belfast, Diamond Hill, Johannesburg, Driefontein, Paardeberg, Relief of Kimberley ;
The second is a KSA with clasps : South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902
The third is a Distinguished Conduct Medal

I searched informations about this sergeant but I found nothing. Because I'm french, I don't know really where to search.

Thank you for your help.






..

That's an exciting first group you have there!

I'm sure more knowledgeable forum members will be able to confirm or correct me, but Sergeant L Ryan, 1st Battalion Welsh Regiment, was court martialled for drunkenness on duty at Pretoria on 24 March 1904. He was reduced to the ranks. While I can't confirm this is the same man, 5230 Ryan's medal rolls show that he did serve in the 1st Battalion.

Further on his medal rolls, while Ryan is listed as a sergeant on the QSA roll, he is listed as a sergeant master tailor on the KSA one. The Evening Herald for 13 August 1897 records the following regarding the court martial of a Welsh Regiment colour sergeant: "Sergeant L. Ryan, master tailor, 1st Welsh, recalled, said the writing on the back of the cheque was not his. He never wrote an "R" or a "L" like those letters constituting the endorsement. Further, he always endorsed a cheque with his name in full, never adding his rank." Thus, Colour Sergeant Staples was found guilty of forging Sergeant Ryan's name on a cheque for £25 18s 7d, and reduced to the ranks.

Pcerre
I had a look in "Recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, 1855-1909" by P.E. Abbot (the standard reference work on the subject) and I cannot find any reference to your "5230 Sgt. L. Ryan, Welsh Regt".
Perhaps you could post a pic of the actual edge details of the trio; especially that of the DCM? Regarding the clasps on his QSA medal, if you go to Unit Information in the panel headed Main Menu and go to Welsh Regt., you can see the field circumstances of the award of those clasps.
Merci
Regards
IL.

Pcerre - QSA Medal Roll 1st Welsh - 5230 Sgt L Ryan about half way down:



As you can see it does not agree with the QSA you possess as the medal roll shows only 5 clasps awarded - Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, Belfast, Cape Colony & Orange Free State. If his clasps were officially changed after the medal was issued it would normally show on the medal roll. Possibly the changes were notified on a supplementary medal roll which has gone missing. Otherwise possible manipulation by original owner or by subsequent owner. If it has been manipulated whoever did it knew what they were doing as they did not just add three more clasps but realised they would between them disqualify the award of the CC & OFS clasps. Also very interesting to note there is a Ryan (plus about 2 others) on the medal roll who officially received the six clasps. All this may or may not affect the validity of the DCM especially, as has been pointed out already, the original owner did have some character flaws.

To complete the picture this is the relevant KSA medal roll with 5230 Sgt Master Tailor L Ryan at the bottom:

Dear all,

Thank you for your kind answers. Here are some photos detailed of the DCM, I didn't notice that the police is different, the matricule is 6230 instead of 5230 on the two others medals, there is the P. initial and the mention of the 1st battalion.

Don't know what to conclude.
Best regards.

Pcerre
Thanks for posting those pics. Again, I regret to say that I an find no entry for 5230/6230 Sgt. L. Ryan in Abbot's book on the DCM. The naming on the DCM is not of a style I would expect to see. To assist, I will post a pic of the naming on a Trophy Obverse Distinguished Conduct Medal to illustrate the difference:

It is possible that your man, Sgt. L. Ryan of the Welch, decided he needed the distinction; perhaps he had been promised an award and was disappointed. So he got one named up to suit. We will never know.
There is quite a good section on the naming on DCMs in Alec A. Purves' "Collecting Medals and Decorations" 4th edition, 1983 if you wish to do any reading.
Good luck with your collecting.
Best regards
IL.