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Entry tags:
ancestry and heirlooms
Over the weekend, my parents started sorting through some of the stuff they'd left in cupboards in the house where I currently live, ready for when they put the house on the market. At the back of one of the cupboards, they found a box containing a bunch of commemorative coins - including a couple of very special ones that Mum had almost forgotten she had. I certainly never knew they existed.
This is the first one, front and back:
It's a commemorative medal dating to July 1907, struck to commemorate the opening of the Queen Alexandra Dock in Cardiff, which was celebrated by a royal visit from Queen Alexandra herself, accompanied by King Edward VII and Princess Victoria. It was originally presented to my Great-Great-Grandfather Samuel Tarr, one of the labourers who helped to build the dock.
Queen Alexandra Dock is still there today - it is the only working dock left in Cardiff, and sits close to the area now known as Porth Teigr, the home of the new BBC film studios and the Doctor Who Experience, which was built on top of the old dry dock, where Samuel's son, my Great-Grampy Billy, spent his whole working life.
With the QA Dock coin is another, larger commemorative plaque struck in bronze - this one a memorial plaque that was given to the families of servicemen killed in action in World War I, accompanied by a very bald, typewritten message from the Palace, acknowledging the sacrifice of a loved one. The name on the plaque is George Tarr - that was Samuel's youngest brother. He was just 19 years old when he was killed, somewhere in France in May 1918.
There aren't any photographs of Samuel, so here's a picture of his son, my Great-Grampy Billy, with his own son, my Granddad Reg (also pictured in this icon) - that's the line these objects have come down through to Mum, and then me.
This is the first one, front and back:
It's a commemorative medal dating to July 1907, struck to commemorate the opening of the Queen Alexandra Dock in Cardiff, which was celebrated by a royal visit from Queen Alexandra herself, accompanied by King Edward VII and Princess Victoria. It was originally presented to my Great-Great-Grandfather Samuel Tarr, one of the labourers who helped to build the dock.
Queen Alexandra Dock is still there today - it is the only working dock left in Cardiff, and sits close to the area now known as Porth Teigr, the home of the new BBC film studios and the Doctor Who Experience, which was built on top of the old dry dock, where Samuel's son, my Great-Grampy Billy, spent his whole working life.
With the QA Dock coin is another, larger commemorative plaque struck in bronze - this one a memorial plaque that was given to the families of servicemen killed in action in World War I, accompanied by a very bald, typewritten message from the Palace, acknowledging the sacrifice of a loved one. The name on the plaque is George Tarr - that was Samuel's youngest brother. He was just 19 years old when he was killed, somewhere in France in May 1918.
There aren't any photographs of Samuel, so here's a picture of his son, my Great-Grampy Billy, with his own son, my Granddad Reg (also pictured in this icon) - that's the line these objects have come down through to Mum, and then me.