Dead Man's Penny. || Last week the Royal Engineers Museum had a work experience student, Daniel, and this is one of the posts he wrote for us: The Dead Man’s Penny would be given to the families of someone who had died at war. The family would receive a telegram about the death of a loved one. This would then follow with a death plaque and any medals the deceased had received during the war. The death plaque or ‘Dead Man’s Penny’ would be given to the next of kin of the servicemen who had fallen in the Great War between 1914 and 1918. The design of the penny was that it was a 12cm disk cast in bronze; it could also have a range of designs on it from an image of Britannia holding an oak spray with leaves and acorns to an imperial lion or the words “He died for freedom and honour”. This dead mans penny commentated the death of George William Whatford. George William Whatford was a Royal Engineer sapper and died at the age of 24.

Photographs, portraits and groups in uniform and on the home front, c1900-1926; Christmas card sent whilst on active service, 1915; medal card index copy, c1919; extract from the UK Mechanical Engineer Records, c1920s and roll of honour at the Church of St James the Great, Hanslope, Buckinghamshire, UK, c1919.

George William Whatford's Dead Man's Penny. || Front