5098, later 322311 Pte Benjamin Balding 2/6th London Regiment

I rarely buy single medals, and yet researching these is no less satisfying than researching a complete group. Indeed, I am coming to the conclusion that researching these - in some cases - single, last-surviving relics of a man's military life can be even more rewarding than researching a group.

I bought this medal and another one like it, yesterday, on impulse. It is named to 5098 Pte B. Balding, 6th London Regt and at the time of buying it I knew nothing about its owner. This is what I have since found out.

Benjamin Balding was born in East Ham in 1896 and was baptised there on the 22nd April that year. He was the second eldest child of George and Martha Balding, brother to George (one year his senior), and Jane (three years his junior). In 1901 and 1911 the family was living at 65 Wellington Road, East Ham. The street has seen many changes over the years but No. 65 is still standing; a typical Victorian terraced house that these days sells as a 2-bedroomed property for around £350,000. In the Google-view below, number 65 is the middle property of these five.

In late 1915, Benjamin married Maud Garbett, one of seven children born to Thomas and Rebecca Garbett of Custom House, south of West Ham. Their marriage was registered at West Ham in the fourth quarter of 1915. 

The 1901 and 1911 census returns record Maud as being 6 and 16 years old respectively and so she would have been about the same age as Benjamin. At this point in time I do not have a precise date for their marriage but I believe it could have been in the second half of December 1915. Benjamin would join the 2/6th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment in January 1916 and I think it possible that he attested under the Derby Scheme in December 1915 and was then mobilised in January 1916. Born in 1896 he would have been in Group 2 of that Scheme if he was single when he attested, or Group 25 if married. Group 2 men were mobilised on the 20th January 1916 but Group 25 men were not mobilised until the 7th April 1916. In other words, if he did attest under the Derby Scheme, he must have done so as a single man in order to have been mobilised the following month.

Benjamin would spend the next year training in the UK and on the 27th July 1916, a daughter, Maud Rebecca M Balding (named after her mother and grandmother) was born to the young couple. On the  26th January 1917, Benjamin arrived in France, part of the original contingent of the 2/6th London Regiment.

No service record survives for Benjamin but the war diary for the 2/6th London Regiment will provide the detail of what happened next. The condensed version is that Benjamin served for the next six months with the battalion before he was killed in action on the 20th July 1917, one week before his daughter's first birthday. His death was reported in the war office weekly casualty list published on the 26th August 1917. Interestingly, whilst Soldiers Died in the Great War records Benjamin's place of residence as West Ham, the casualty list notes Custom House:

Benjamin is buried in the British extension at Metz-en-Couture Communal Cemetery, south of Cambrai. His young widow would later be sent the £2, five shillings and three pence owing to him at the time of his death and, much later still, a war gratuity of £6 in respect of his rank and length of service. An employee of the Gas Light and Coke Company in peacetime, Benjamin is commemorated on that company's war memorial at Twelvetrees Crescent, Bromley by Bow, E3 3TE:

Benjamin's daughter, who of course would have been too young to know her father, would marry Cyril F Page in 1935 and go on to have two daughters of her own, Jeanette E Page, born in 1937, and Pamela M Page, born in 1940. Both girls' births were registered in West Ham and Maud Page would die as recently as 2005, her death registered in Newham.