Great War casualty pair awarded to Gunner A.A.J. Taylor, ‘C’ Battery, 189th Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery who was killed in action 17th June 1917 being buried at New Irish Farm Cemetery. He was the son of John Taylor, Keeper of Prisons and the first Head of Police of the Colony of British Honduras who had earlier been a prison warder at HMP Pentonville at the time of the incarceration of Oscar Wilde.
Pair: British War Medal and Victory Medal; (L-46025 GNR. A.A.J. TAYLOR. R.A.)
Condition: Good Very Fine
Along with:
Official letter to the recipient’s father – Mr. J. Taylor, Punta Gorda, D.C., Toledo District, British Honduras, Central America confirming the receipt of an earlier letter and informing him that the medals his son was entitled to would be issued in due course.
Forwarding letter for the British War Medal from R.H. & R.F.A. Records dated 1st December 1921.
Forwarding letter for a Memorial Plaque which is no longer present with the group.
A reproduced image of the recipient
2 Royal Artillery Buttons.
A book ‘In Search of my Grandfather John Taylor (JT), DC, JP, OBE 1864-1940 by Ian Prince, covering the life of John Alexander Alston Taylor’s father.
Alexander Alston John Taylor lived in Rochester, Kent, and enlisted in London seeing service as a Gunner (No. 46025) with ‘C’ Battery, 189th Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery before being killed in action on 17th June 1917 subsequently being buried in the New Irish Farm Cemetery.
Taylor’s father was a prison warder at Pentonville and would likely have been there during Oscar Wilde’s incarceration, and would later travel to British Honduras where he was made Chief Warder of Belize Prison later being appointed Keeper of Prisons and the first Head of Police of the colony. By 1906 he had become a district commissioner, and two years later, a Justice of the Peace.
Shortly after the death of Alexander, his father would write a letter to his daughter
‘My darling Babs
I have two letters of yours to answer ie those dated the 30th June and July 21st. I have not answered them before because I was waiting to hear from you again, particularly in respect of my last long one to you on the subject of poor Alex. Of course I overlook the fact that all letters now take on the average one month both ways, owing to the erratic mail service, for now we have no contract in that respect with any steamship company from the outside world, and this colony has no ships of its own, and we are indebted to any old tramp steamer that happens to be coming to Belize from New Orleans – fortunately there is the one that comes weekly for Bananas and occasionally there is a little regularity in the incoming mails.
My reason for writing today, is on the assumption that I may not get a letter from you for some tie yet, and there are certain matters in respect of Alex, which have to be seen to, that is to say, in the matter of a so-called Estate.
Poor boy, I know he had very little outside of his personal belongings to leave, and I feel sure his wish would be that his sister should have them. I have in the past, already notified both the War Office and the Office of Records at Woolwich as to the disposition of his belongings, and any money to his estate, as you will see by the enclosed copies of my answers to their official letters on the subject.
Out here I have the greater part of his school books, have carefully packed them away in a box from the depredations of cockroaches and other vermin with which this colony abounds. Some day I may either be able to bring them or send them, and if anything happens to me, well they would be sent home to you.’
