Thanks again Pat. I'm very proud to be able to share Sam's photo and story. Can I please share your work Jim along with a copy of this letter I have written in 1903? It was sent to me by Chester Museum.
Captain J. Bates,
Chief constable of Staybridge,
2/7/1903
To Colonel Blood, 1s. V.B.C.R.
Dear Colonel Blood,
Sergeant Davies, for whom I sent you the Kings Medal the other day, informs me that it is to be presented to him at your annual inspection in a short time from now.
I would like to express to you privately my very keen appreciation of the good services he gave as a member of the 1st and 3rd Companies.
Captain Thornley, the O.C. of the 1st Coy, had I know, the highest opinion of him, and as the O.C. of the 3rd Coy I would like to say what a valuable N.C.O. he proved himself to be in the field. He was always most energetic and thoroughly reliable and when Colonel Graham asked me to furnish the names of two men in my Coy whom I considered worthy of special distinction, Sgt Davies was the first of the two names I gave to him. That he was not mentioned in dispatches was probably due to the fact, as Mr Balfour practically stated in the house, that they had exhausted their stock of Honers by a too liberal distribution of them in the early part of the war.
Of the few Volunteers that wear the King Medal no one has won his more worthily that Sgt Davies.
Believe me, Sir,
Yours very truly,
J Bates
