Second World War Medal & Army LS&GC Medal Pair – Company Sergeant Major Lionel Christopher Stoneman, Gloucestershire Regiment
War Medal – unnamed as issued
Army Long Service & Good Conduct Medal – 5176462 SJT. L. C. STONEMAN. GLOUC. R.
With box of issue and entitlement slip.
Lionel Christopher Stoneman was born at Gloucester on 6 March 1902. In the 1911 Census, he was recorded as a nine-year-old boarder at 6 Bristol Villas, Bristol Road, Gloucester, together with his father, Christopher Henry Stoneman, and his elder sister, Winifred.
By 1921, Stoneman was living at 10 Brunswick Square, Gloucester, and was employed as a carpenter at the Stephens works at Leanshony, Gloucester. He remained associated with Gloucestershire during the interwar years and was recorded at 2 Wellington Place in the Stroud parliamentary division in 1938.
Stoneman subsequently pursued a long career in the British Army, serving as 5176462 Lionel Christopher Stoneman with the Gloucestershire Regiment. His service number belonged to the Gloucestershire Regiment’s allocated numerical block, while his surviving medal records identify him as both a Sergeant and later Company Sergeant Major.
In 1940, while holding the rank of Sergeant, Stoneman was awarded the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal under Army Order 62. The award recognised an extended period of exemplary service in the Regular Army and indicates that he had already completed the substantial qualifying service required before the Second World War had progressed far.
During the Second World War, Stoneman continued serving with the Gloucestershire Regiment and attained the appointment of Company Sergeant Major. His medal application records that he was released from the Army on 8 July 1941, aged approximately forty, with the Gloucestershire Regiment given as his last regiment.
Stoneman’s campaign medal entitlement was confined to the War Medal 1939–45. His application card shows that the other campaign stars and the Defence Medal were not awarded, indicating that his wartime service did not meet the qualifying requirements for those additional awards. The War Medal was issued to him on 18 February 1949.
The medal survives with its original box of issue and medal entitlement slip, addressed to Stoneman at 2 Wellington Place, Wootton-under-Edge, Dursley, Gloucestershire. These accompanying items provide a direct link between the unnamed War Medal and its original recipient.
The group is completed by Stoneman’s named Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, awarded for his pre-war Regular Army career. Together, the two medals represent both his lengthy service with the Gloucestershire Regiment and his continued duty during the Second World War.
In later life, Stoneman lived at Bartlett House, Old Commons Way, Ludgershall, near Andover, Hampshire. Lionel Christopher Stoneman died on 5 April 1984, aged eighty-two. Probate was granted at Winchester on 4 May 1984, with his estate recorded as not exceeding £40,000.
Together, the medals represent the career of a long-serving Gloucestershire Regiment soldier who rose to Company Sergeant Major, earned the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal in 1940 and continued serving during the Second World War, for which he received the War Medal 1939–45.
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AJMS Medals