British War Medal 1914 - 1920 : Lieutenant Colonel I Chaseling, Sea Transport Service, AIF.

British War Medal 1914-20. Impressed around edge with recipient's name.

This medal was awarded to Lieutenant Colonel Isaiah Chaseling but was worn by Lieutenant Colonel N H Whitfield as part of his medal group.

In 1916, Major Chaseling, a dentist by profession, who had served more than twenty years in the militia with the Australian Garrison Artillery, was awarded the Colonial Officers' Volunteer Decoration. He had been seconded to the 36th New South Wales Infantry in 1912. After the outbreak of the First World War he served at the Liverpool training camp outside Sydney, and then commanded the Cootamundra training camp. He enlisted in the AIF on 29 March 1917 at the age of 49, making a statutory declaration to the effect that 'to the best of [his] knowledge' he had been born on 13 October 1867.

Chaseling joined the Sea Transport Service and was given to temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was officer commanding troops on the transport Ulysses, which left Sydney on 9 May 1917, arriving at Plymouth, UK, on 29 July. Chaseling spent a short time in England before returning to Australia on the transport Benalla, which arrived in Sydney on 26 October 1917. He died at 4 Australian General Hospital at Randwick in Sydney on 8 April 1919. His newspaper obituary stated that he was 56 years old; his date of birth therefore was actually 13 October 1862.

On 15 January 1921 Norman Whitfield married Chaseling's youngest daughter, Sylvia, at St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. It is not known whether he substituted his late father-in-law's medals for his own out of respect or affection for him, or whether he substituted them as a replacement for original medals issued to him that had been lost.