TOPIC:

Agh! I thought I had found the source book: The Queen's Regulations and Orders of the Army, 1899 . PDF 24mb. 548 pages.



This is a poor quality scan of the book.

But no. This is a paragraph 1255 but this relates to training.

Robd/David
The governing word in the Manual of Military Law is "may" halfway through the second line in (11). "May" means there is a discretionary power - and that power would be subject to appeal then or later. Just at what level any appeal would be heard (and what indeed COULD be heard in defence) would be specified by the governing legislation. Kindly excuse my buying into this one; some aspects of Administrative Law were my field for over twenty years. I did some reading around and I did find references to The Army Act, 1881; which seems to have been in force in at least some respects until after WW2. I have not been able to find a copy of the Army Act at all. Perhaps it contains the elusive "articles".
Regards
IL.

Ian,

That's a good idea. I will check that out.

Thank you
David

Thank you for the many replies - Linney, Patrick and Mike, and David B. Regrettably no answer forthcoming as yet but the Manual of Military Law (thanks David) looks promising but there must be a specific Article which deals with the withholding of medals. Articles 1255 and 1256 appear to respond to that but strange to say that despite you many good souls who have hunted up official sources it seems that these Articles are eluding us.

I have a copy of the Manual of Military Law for 1914. There are no Articles 1255 or 1256. But under Military Decorations - Forfeiture there are some interesting and tantalising probabilities that would apply to the three lads who were denied a medal. Those who are familiar with this volume can look on pages 396 and 397 for offences that MAY result in the forfeiture of the medal; there are listed a range of other punishments that can be applied for the particular offence.

However, it doesn't really get me any nearer an explanation of why three 5VMR lads were denied a medal. There is no record of two of them returning to Australia with the unit and they seem to disappear from all records (perhaps remaining in South Africa). The third was sent back after 6 months service. The last fellow made no mention in his WW1 attestation of his Boer War service. He ends up by serving on the western front in WW1 and being wounded and receiving the WW1 medals. Looks like all three were ashamed of what they had done? But this is guesswork, not fact.

Cheers to all. Thanks again, though I hope it can still remain an open challenge!

Rob D

Rob,

It does remain a challenge. I'll check the legal route today.

Best wishes
David

I am having trouble locating the Army Act 1881 on line. Has anyone accessed it?

I have tried without success www.legislation.gov.uk/