Search for soldier's relatives

Don McIvor said Private Cox, who served with the Otago Regiment, was buried in Longueval War Cemetery in France. Photo / NZME.

The Returned Services Association is hoping to track down descendants of a Napier couple believed to have lived in Napier and whose son, Private Sidney Herbert Cox, died during a World War 1 battle in France in 1916.

Napier RSA president John Purcell said he had received an email from the national president, Don McIvor, who had written to say the RSA had been given a mounted and framed commemoration of Private Cox that had come from a national collector.

The commemoration also included what had become known as "the death penny" - a small bronze memorial plaque issued after World War 1 to the next-of-kin of all British and Empire service personnel killed in the war.

Mr McIvor said Private Cox, who served with the Otago Regiment, was buried in Longueval War Cemetery in France.

He said records the RSA had showed his parents as being Mr and Mrs Ernest Cox of Hastings St, Napier.

"I wondered if there are any surviving descendants who might be interested in this quite handsome memento," Mr Cox said.

"Otherwise we may have to consider where it should be held."

Mr Purcell said he had contacted some local families with that surname but had come up with nothing.

"But if there are family out there who have an interest in this then they can get in touch with me through the Napier RSA," Mr Purcell said.