WW1 Canadian Named Signaller Grouping 90th Battalion 8th Battalion 4th Battalion

A WW1 Canadian grouping, named to 475068, Private James Elham, covering his time in Canada, England, and France, serving as a Signaller with the 90th Winnipeg Rifles, 8th Battalion ("The Black Devils"), and the 4th Battalion (Central Ontario). A very large archive and Signaller's set comprising of the private purchase Cuirass Collar (Body Armour) that was purchased by Pte. Elham while he was in England in early June of 1916 while he was awaiting to go to France. The collar is also mentioned in the letters that accompany the grouping. Constructed of metal plates with ring jointing on a canvas material backing.  Along with it, is his 1918 omnigraph machine used by him to teach morse code while instructing at signal school in 1918. The machine is a wooden platform that measures 10 1/4 by 6 1/2 inches and is complete with the wind-up key along with the 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch paperback 12 page manual that has hand written notations to the reverse, and a 2nd paperback manual, measuring 4 3/4 by 7 inches and containing 30 pages with illustrations. Missing the front and back cover, but rare to find in any condition. A white 3 ring binder accompanies the grouping that contains 77 hand written letters with a few being on letterhead, some being 1 pages, and many being multiple, 5 to 8, and some being 8 to 16 pages in length. The letters were written in both England and France, and the former collector has placed them in order of date, with notations made as to the date, place, and number of pages. The former collector has also written out each letter by hand for easier reading. The set is also with 13 other hand written letters, some being with the envelopes, along with 4 photographs, each with Pte. Elham and men of the unit he was with. and a picture postcard of him in uniform that is period hand applied named to the reverse. With it is a single Sargant rank chevron removed from his uniform, The grouping also contains 2 metal message containers for use with pigeons. The message carriers are tagged with hand written information.  Lastly, is a German Soldbuch and photo postcards that were taken as a souvenir by Pte. Elham during his time with the 4th Battalion. He obtained them after raiding an overrun German trench after the big push on September 27th, 1918, during the first day of the battle of Canal du Nord. This is all mentioned in a letter to his parents dated October 4th, 1918 that is part of the grouping. The former collector has also completed extensive research that accompanies the grouping with typed out copies of some of the letters along with a index of some of the people mentioned and talked about in the letters. Tags and notations have also been added by the previous collector to some of the items with information about the items in the grouping. A very complete and historical one-of-kind grouping and archive of a WW1 Canadian soldier serving overseas. SKU: 62356