County: Glamorganshire
Issued on: Departure
Date of presentation: 14/04/1900
Number issued: 1
Gold albert & pendant, to:
Presentation made by Deputy Constable Captain Thomas, at Goat Street Police Station, Swansea.
Inscribed: “Presented to P.C. Mathias (42) by the officers and members of the Swansea Borough Police Force on his leaving for South Africa”.
Swansea Constable Gone to War.
PRESENTATION AT GOAT STREET POLICE STATION.
P.C. William MATHIAS, of the Swansea Borough Police Force, and a second class reservist attached to the Royal Horse Artillery, left for Southampton, en route for the front on Easter Monday. P.C.’s Vigors and Balsdon, who have already been called up, had their departure acknowledged in a suitable manner by their colleagues in the Force, and it was not likely that Mathias’s leaving was going to be unnoticed by them. Sergeant Johns and P.C. (67) Evans promptly took the matter in hand, and the outcome was that every member of the Force subscribed towards the purchase of a handsome gold albert and a pendant, attached with which was a beautiful briar silver-mounted pipe, the gift of the single men at the Oxford Street section house, were presented to Mathias at the Goat Street police station on Saturday evening. In the absence of the Chief Constable, Deputy Constable Captain Thomas made both presentations.
The inscription engraved on the pendant read: “Presented to P.C. Mathias (42) by the officers and members of the Swansea Borough Police Force on his leaving for South Africa”, and in a few well-chosen words, the Deputy Constable conveyed to Mathias the best wishes of the entire Force for a pleasant voyage, and a safe return, adding that it must be very gratifying to him to find such a very good feeling existed between him and his colleagues. (Hear, hear).
