WW1 ROYAL NAVY LONG SERVICE MEDALS M6727 CHIEF SHIPWRIGHT JOHN PALMER

Offered is a 1914-15 Star, impressed named M.6727. J.R. PALMER. SHPT. 2. R.N., British War and Victory medals (1914 -18), impressed named M6727 J.R. PALMER.SHPT. 1. R.N., Royal Navy Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (G.V.) impressed named M.6727 J.R. PALMER. CH.SHPT. 2. H.M.S. FROBISHER. Court mounted for display. Comes with copies service records, medal roll and 1939 census.

Chief Shipwright John Richard Palmer was born on the 20/6/1888 at Brixham, Devon. It is highly probable that he had been a Boy Shipwright earlier in his career, who would have serves a 5-year apprenticeship in the Royal Dockyard shops. He was a shipwright at H.M.S. Dockyards by trade when he enlisted into the Royal Navy 14/10/1913 as a Shipwright 2^nd Class.

He served on a variety of H.M. ship and shore bases including: Vivid II (RNAS Eastchurch, Sheppey, Kent) & Pembroke

WW1: H.M.S. Africa ( pre-dreadnought battleship) 5/12/1913 - 25/11/1915. Pembroke II, Vivid II (Vivid II was the Stokers and Engine Room Artificers School in Devonport), H.M.S. Cambrean ( C-class light cruiser) 19/7/1916- 21/5/1919 & promoted to shipwright 1^stClass 1/3/1917.

Post war he served aboard H.M.S. Thistle (Bramble-class gunboat) 31/7/1919 - 31/10/1920. In 1919, HMS Thistle was ordered to return to West Africa, but almost as soon as the ship left Zanzibar, the starboard propellor failed. The Captain, Lieutenant-Commander Cecil Cruttwell, had been educated aboard the square-rigged training ship HMS Conway, and he promptly set the crew to making a new set of sails, a task that Palmer would have been fully involved in.

The new sails seem to have always been used in combination with whatever engine power was available, increasing speed and thus reducing fuel consumption, but they were seen as useful enough to be retained when the engine was repaired. During the voyage the limited coal supply continued to be a problem, and on a visit to Liberia in 1920, the gunboat's crew had to obtain wood in Monrovia in to avoid running completely out of fuel. HMS Thistle would retain a sailing rig for the rest of her career.

H.M.S: Birmingham, Chatham, Dartmouth, King George V, Pegasus, Valiant, Frobisher, Guardian, Drake. Discharged to pension 7/11/1935, the 1939 census records him living in Plymouth as a retired shipwright.

He was awarded his L.S. & G.C. in December 1928.