Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

A rare mould for a Great War Memorial Plaque, of heavy metal construction, having provision for the alteration of the name for the individual casting of each personalised plaque, a rare survival, and the only example seen by the cataloguer, minor wear and polishing £150-200

Following the Empire-wide competition to design ‘a small memorial plaque in bronze to be given to the next of kin of those members of His Majesty’s naval and military forces who have fallen in war’, the model submitted by ‘Pyramus’ - Edward Carter Preston of Liverpool - was adopted (The Imperial War Museum holds Carter Preston’s original plaster model).

Production of the plaques was beset with difficulties from the start. Manning Pike, an American engineer, was engaged to oversee the casting in a disused laundry in Acton. Because of the slow pace of production, he was summarily dismissed by the War Office and the work passed over to the Woolwich Arsenal and other munitions factories. Only then did the slow and ‘weary business’ involved in the plaque production come home to the military mandarins in Whitehall. Manning Pike was re-engaged with contrition and apology, the process destined to continue for years to come.