Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Memorial Plaque (2) (John Henry Lawson Fisher; Frank Sydney Foreman) good very fine (2) £80-£100

John Henry Lawson Fisher served during the Great War in the Mercantile Marine Reserve and was aboard H.M.S. India when she was on duty intercepting and inspecting neutral shipping in the North Sea. On 8 August 1915 she was torpedoed by German submarine U-22 near Helligvaer, Norway; breaking in two she sank quickly with the loss of an estimated 160 lives. Fisher was amongst those killed, and is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.

Frank Sydney Foreman, a native of Chadwell Heath, Essex, served during the Great War as a Butcher in the Mercantile Marine, and was aboard the Mercantile Marine Ship SS Arcadian when she was torpedoed by the German submarine UC-74 in the eastern Mediterranean on 15 April 1917, and sank within six minutes with the loss of 279 lives.

The Arcadian had originally been launched as the SS Ortona but had been renamed when she was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and used as a cruise liner, undertaking her first world cruise in January 1912; she was the largest cruise ship in the world at the time. Following the outbreak of the Great War she was hired by the Admiralty and used, alongside the battleship H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth, as the headquarters of General Sir Ian Hamilton during the early stages of the Gallipoli campaign. She was later used as a troop ship in the Mediterranean. On 15 April 1917 the Arcadian was en route from Salonika to Alexandria with some 1,335 men on board when she was hit by the torpedo. The lifeboats were lowered before she sank but many of the men who died were cooks and stewards serving below decks. Foreman was amongst those killed, and he is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial.