Model Medium Mark A Whippet tank: Private John Fyfe Hunter, Tank Corps

Nickel plated solid brass model of a Whippet tank, in roughly 1/95 scale, made in three sections (body and two track assemblies) which are screwed together. The screws have then been ground flat. The model is fixed to a sloping stand with three layers of wood sandwiched between two thick brass plates with a threaded fastener. The upper brass plate has been decorated with a cobble pattern. The model and the base have been heavily varnished.

This model is associated with the service of 76514 Private John Fyfe Hunter, Tank Corps, and was probably made by him. Private Hunter, born in Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland in 1896, was employed as a chauffer and miner before the war, and joined up on 30 January 1915 with 256 Company, Army Service Corps, where he was a driver.

On transferring to the Heavy Section Machine Gun Corps (the early iteration of the Tank Corps) at No 1 Tank Stores in January 1917 with the rank of gunner, he was employed as a tank mechanist and fitter. He served at the Tank Corps Central Workshops which had been established in the town of Erin, France, on a 6 acre plot, two and a half miles north of the Heavy Branch Headquarters at Bermicourt. When the main Workshops later moved to Tenuer, just a few miles northwest, in March 1918, the Tank Stores took over the entire Erin plot.

He was transferred to the Army Reserve on 4 July 1919, and discharged in 3 March 1920. In the 1920s he emigrated to Australia, settling in Victoria.

There is evidence in the two models (REL35333 and REL35334) that Hunter worked on both the Mark V and Medium Mark A Whippet tanks. The Whippet was a fast tank, armed with four .303 in Hotchkiss Mk 1 machine guns, with a speed of about 13 kph. It was used from March 1918 by the British Army, but mainly in the August 1918 offensive.