Appeal to locate family of WW1 hero's medal

A woman is appealing for help to find the family of a World War One soldier after discovering his medal in her late husband's collection.

Joyce Smith said the medal was assigned to Private Joseph Newbury, from The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment).

After further research, she learned Pte Newbury was born in Derby and died near Ypres in Belgium in September 1915.

Speaking to the BBC, Smith, from Bolton in Greater Manchester, said: "All I want is to return this medal to whoever should have it, it's not mine."

Smith said her husband was a keen lover of history and his own grandfather served in WW1, fighting at the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium in 1917.

After her husband's death, Smith said she was rooting around in an old jewellery box when she found the medal.

Following some research and help from historian Paul Reed, she discovered Pte Newbury was from Derby, his widow Elizabeth remarried, and there were details of at least two children.

He died a few months after the Second Battle of Ypres.

"I haven't a clue where this medal came from," Smith said. "I can only think it was my husband who got it from somewhere.

"If I'd have found it before he died, I could have asked him what it was - I became interested and cleaned it up and it is a beautiful medal.

"Private Newbury will probably have great-great-grandchildren and I would love to give it to them."

Military historian and author Paul Reed, who has appeared on the BBC, Channel 4 and the History Channel about WW1, took on some extra research to help out.

From the name he was given, he said he found medal records of Pte Newbury, which helped him track down other vital information, such as where he was born and his family, from ancestry databases.

Reed told the BBC that Pte Newbury would have never have seen this medal as it was issued to his family after the war.

"Every soldier who served in that war in the British Army was awarded at least two medals - the one Joyce has, to call it its proper name, is the Inter-Allied Victory Medal.

"That was to commemorate the victory of the Great War that came about following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

"They were given to all nations that were part of that victory, but the difference with the British ones is they're all named to an individual soldier so that enables us to trace who they were."

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