British War Medal 1914-20 : Corporal W Divall, 6 Light Horse Regiment, AIF

British War Medal 1914-20. Impressed around edge with recipient's details. Obverse: The coinage head of King George V with the legend 'GEORGIVS V BRITT: OMN: REX ET IND: IMP' around the circumference. Reverse: The naked figure of Saint George on horseback facing right and holding a Roman style sword in his right hand. The horse is trampling on an eagle shield representing the Central Powers and on a skull and crossbones being symbolic of death; above the horse's head is the sun, symbolic of victory. Around the circumference are the dates '1914' and '1918' . The medal is fitted with a fixed straight bar suspender and a piece of 32 mm ribbon which has a broad orange watered centre stripe bordered with white, black and blue stripes.

Awarded to 63 Corporal William Divall, 6 Light Horse Regiment who enlisted at Newcastle, NSW on 18 September 1914. Divall, who was born in Goulburn in 1865, had previously served in Sudan (1885) and South Africa (1900). In his enlistment application for the First World War he stated that he was 45, employed as a railway guard, and had had no previous military service. He assigned as a private to A Squadron, 6 Light Horse Regiment, AIF. On 1 October 1914 he was promoted to corporal. The regiment sailed for overseas service from Sydney on December 1914, aboard HMAT A29 Suevic. After training in Egypt Divall landed on Gallipoli with his regiment on 15 May 1915. On 25 July he was evacuated to hospital on Mudros suffering from influenza, neuralgia and rheumatism. At the end of July he was transferred to Malta and then, on 22 August, to England. He was assessed unfit for further military service and returned to Australia on 8 May 1916, where he was discharged. He was still unable to work in 1917 and received a military pension for his disability. Divall died in 1935.