History Class Returns WW1 Medal To Owner's Family
A group of teenage history students in Northern England has reunited a First World War medal with the family of the soldier who was awarded it.
Teacher Ryan Curran was given the medal as a present by his fiancé, Laura Bowman, and Curran began using the medal in his lessons about the First World War.
“It’s a physical piece of history – linking the physical piece with what we’ve been talking about.”
But on closer inspection, one of the students noticed the engraved name along the side of the copper and bronze Inter-Allied Victory Medal.
Servicemen and women who served in any of the theatres of operations, or at sea, between August 1914 and November 1918 were eligible for the medal.
The class began searching war records and found the medal had belonged to Joseph Albert Hewson, who was born in Cumberland in 1898 and had enlisted aged 18.
He had fought in France in the final offensive against German forces in 1918.
Further research found that Hewson survived the war, married and moved to Canada in 1923.
Hewson and his wife, Laura, went on to have eight children.
Nathan Lee Bell was among the students who wanted to post the medal back.
“It’s the rightful owner – he fought for it so it’s his, not mine”
On receiving the medal, 4,000 miles away, at her home in Alberta, Peg Johnson, Hewson’s great niece was overcome with emotion.
“I just feel very close to him just holding it in my hand.”
Mrs Johnson said she did not know where her grandfather’s First World War medals went so she was grateful for a piece of the family history.
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