Height: 6.5cm (2.5in)
Silver. Circular stepped bases, two of the four inscribed ‘Presented to / G. Pauling Esq // By The Officers of The “Anson” Battn’, the other two inscribed ‘“Anson Battn RND / 1917’; all applied with a silver the battalion title scroll, motto ‘Nil Desperandum’, and crest of the 18th century Admiral Lord Anson (1697-1762) who beat the French off Cape Finistre in 1747. Maker’s mark of JR Gaunt & Sons, Birmingham. Hallmarked Birmingham 1916
The Anson Battalion was raised along with the rest of the Royal Naval Division on the outbreak of the First World War from reservists surplus to the requirements of the fleets. Accordingly it served for the entire duration of the war in an infantry role, in the Defence of Antwerp (1914), in the Gallipoli Campaign (1915), and on the Salonika Front (1916). It landed on Landed at Marseilles 19 May 1916 and saw action on the Western Front at Beaucourt, Gavrelle, Passchendaele and elsewhere. Its final combat was near Mons on the day before the Armistice. The Anson Battalion sustained 975 fatalities over the course of the war.