Original Item: Only One Available. This is a particularly poignant British WWI Memorial Plaque commemorating Gunner Joseph Covley of the 25th Trench Mortar Battery, Royal Field Artillery, whose surviving records trace his story from the brutal fighting of the German Spring Offensive to captivity and death as a Prisoner of War. Covley was captured by German forces at Ploegsteert on April 10, 1918, during the Battle of the Lys, when the German offensive was driving into British positions around Armentières, Messines, and Ploegsteert. He survived his capture but died while still a prisoner on July 23, 1918. Accompanied by an extensive group of printed research documents, including several entries from German Prisoner of War records, this plaque offers considerably more history than an unidentified Memorial Plaque and preserves the story of one individual artilleryman caught up in the final violent months of WWI.

Joseph Covley was born in London on:

August 29, 1893

He served as a Gunner with the:

25th Trench Mortar Battery
Royal Field Artillery

Trench mortar batteries occupied a particularly demanding place on the Western Front. Operating comparatively short range weapons from positions close to the front line, their crews supplied infantry with concentrated indirect fire against trenches, strongpoints, wire, machine gun positions, and other targets that conventional field artillery could not always engage effectively. The weapons themselves could be cumbersome, and their firing positions often attracted immediate enemy artillery and mortar retaliation.

By 1918, men serving in trench mortar batteries had experienced a war that had changed dramatically from the campaigns of 1914. Static trench warfare was giving way once again to rapid movement as Germany committed enormous resources to a series of offensives intended to defeat the Allied armies before American manpower could decisively affect the war.

Covley was captured on April 10, 1918, at Ploegsteert in Belgium.

The surviving research apparently renders the location as:

“Ploegstrate”

This appears to refer to Ploegsteert, the well known Western Front village and battlefield south of Ypres.

The date is historically significant. On April 9, 1918, the German Army launched Operation Georgette, the Battle of the Lys, as part of the larger German Spring Offensive. German forces broke through portions of the Allied line and pushed toward the strategically important rail center of Hazebrouck and the approaches to the Channel ports.

On April 10, the attack expanded northward. British forces were driven back in the sectors around Armentières, Messines, Wytschaete, and Ploegsteert, with extremely heavy fighting around Ploegsteert Wood. Contemporary British accounts recorded the withdrawal of the line in precisely this area. Covley’s capture therefore occurred during one of the most confused and dangerous moments of the 1918 German offensive.

The circumstances of his individual capture are not presently known. He may have been overrun during the German advance, cut off during a withdrawal, or captured after his position became untenable. Unless the accompanying research establishes further details, we do not want to speculate beyond the documented fact that he became a German Prisoner of War at Ploegsteert on April 10, 1918.

Covley remained in German captivity for more than three months.

He died as a Prisoner of War on:

July 23, 1918

Based upon the supplied birth date of August 29, 1893, he was 24 years old when he died, less than six weeks before his 25th birthday.

The plaque is accompanied by a substantial quantity of printed research relating to Covley’s military service and captivity. Included are several entries from German Prisoner of War rosters, providing an unusual documentary record of the man commemorated on the plaque. These papers make the group particularly suitable for further genealogical and military research.

The bronze Memorial Plaque itself was one of the most personal forms of official commemoration created in the aftermath of WWI. It was issued to the next of kin of British and British Empire service personnel who died as a consequence of the war. Families received the plaque together with other commemorative material, creating a permanent official memorial intended to recognize the sacrifice of the individual named upon it.

The plaques soon became popularly known as the:

“Death Penny”

or:

“Dead Man’s Penny”

The nickname came from their circular bronze form and resemblance to an enormously enlarged British penny. Each plaque measures approximately 4.72 inches, or 120mm, in diameter, compared with approximately 1.215 inches for the contemporary penny coin.

Approximately 1,355,000 Memorial Plaques were ultimately issued, consuming roughly 450 tons of bronze. Distribution continued long after the Armistice, in some cases into the 1930s, because plaques were also issued for men and women whose deaths were officially attributable to wartime service after the fighting had ended.

The design was selected through a public competition that attracted more than 800 submissions. Sculptor and medallist Edward Carter Preston, entering under the pseudonym “Pyramus,” produced the winning design.

The finished plaque depicts Britannia standing beside a lion and holding a trident. In her extended hand is an olive wreath positioned above a rectangular tablet bearing the deceased serviceman’s name in raised lettering. An oak spray with acorns appears nearby, while two dolphins symbolize British sea power.

At the bottom of the composition, a second lion attacks the German imperial eagle, a direct piece of wartime symbolism that leaves no doubt about the historical context in which the plaque was created.

The designer’s initials:

E.CR.P.

appear above the lion’s front paw.

Around the perimeter is the inscription:

HE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR

No military rank appears with Covley’s name. This was intentional. The plaques were designed so that an officer and an enlisted soldier would be commemorated in exactly the same manner, emphasizing equality of sacrifice rather than military status.

Approximately 1,500 plaques were issued for women, using the corresponding wording:

SHE DIED FOR FREEDOM AND HONOUR

Production began at the Memorial Plaque Factory at 54/56 Church Road, Acton, London, in 1919. Earlier Acton produced plaques generally lack the small manufacturing number found behind the lion’s rear leg on some later examples.

What makes this particular plaque especially compelling is the amount of surviving history attached to the name. Joseph Covley was not simply one of more than a million British servicemen memorialized in bronze. His documents place him with a specific Royal Field Artillery trench mortar unit, at Ploegsteert during the German offensive of April 10, 1918, and subsequently in German captivity, where he died only months before the Armistice.

The combination of a named original Memorial Plaque, Royal Field Artillery service, trench mortar association, documented capture during the Battle of the Lys, death as a German Prisoner of War, and extensive accompanying research makes this an unusually personal WWI memorial group. It would be particularly significant in a British Great War, Royal Field Artillery, Prisoner of War, 1918 Spring Offensive, Battle of the Lys, or individual soldier research collection.