A WENDOUREE resident is searching for the descendants of a World War I English solider after he discovered a lost war medallion years ago.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For more than 50 years, Danny Forde said something had “niggled” at the back of his mind.
After moving to Australia from Dublin, he said he purchased a “box of junk” from a garage sale somewhere in the Mallee.
Hidden at the bottom of the box he found a bronze World War I service medallion.
The medal belonged to English World War I solider Private William Bertie Ballinger.
“I opened up the box and I thought it just looked like an old penny,” Mr Forde said.
“There was heaps of other junk all over it and it was quite faded and rusty.”
But when he read the inscription “The Great War for Civilisation 1914-1919”, he realised its value.
After holding onto it for decades, Mr Forde began researching the inscription on the side of the medal recently and he has started a quest to find living family descendants of Private Ballinger.
“I find it puzzling to think that this medal made it all the way over from England and into a box of junk in the middle of country Victoria,” Mr Forde said.
“I would love to be able to reunite it with its rightful owners before Anzac Day.”
According to English war records, Private Ballinger was born in Worcestershire, England, in 1880.
He was part of the 9th Battalion and died on April 20, 1916, at 36 years old.
It is not know how or when he died or how his medals ended up in regional Victoria.
War records outlined he was the son Sarah Ann Ballinger and Thomas Ballinger.
Mr Forde said the centenary of World War I had spurred him on to find the relatives of the solider.
“My father served in the First World War and I have brothers who served in the military, too, so I know how much something like this would mean to a family,” he said.
Anybody who has any information on the medal can contact this reporter on
5320 1229.
melissa.cunningham@fairfaxmedia.com.au
