A TEENAGE history student has helped reunite a medal with the family of the First World War soldier who earned it.

Sharp-eyed Kieran Lowery, 15, spotted the letters spelling out ‘Private JA Hewson’ engraved on the side of a copper and bronze Inter-Allied Victory Medal brought into class during a lesson on the Ludendorff offensive.

With the help of teacher Ryan Curran, the class, at Delta Independent School, in Consett, set about finding out more about him.

Searches of war records helped them conclude it had belonged to Joseph Albert Hewson, who was born in Cumberland in 1898 and signed up aged 18.

By a strange twist of fate, he took part in the Hundred Days’ Offensive and the British counter-attack, battles the group had been learning about.

Kieran, from Pelton, near Chester-le-Street, said: “I saw the medal and started turning it around and saw the initials on it.

“It is 100 years old. It is a bit mad to think about. I like history and love learning about the war.

“I wouldn’t want to go and do it though. It would have been scary for him.”

The medal, which shows a full-length, winged figure of Victory, had been bought as a Christmas present for Mr Curran from Elliott Military in Tow Law by his fiancé, Laura Bowman.

But when the class learned more about it, Kieran suggested tracking down Pri6vate Hewson’s family so they could return it.

After more work, using an ancestry website, they were able locate Mr Hewson’s great niece, Peg Johnson, who lives in Alberta, Canada, 4,000 miles away.

Mr Curran said: “Kieran’s group have shown great interest in World War one so I thought I would bring it in to show them.

“Thanks to Kieran we have managed to get a record of his service and his enrolment forms.

“The medal is not rare, but sentimentally it will be of value to his family.

“We are going to mail it back to them. For all I got it for Christmas, I didn’t earn it.”

Mrs Johnson, 77, has emailed the class and told them Mr Hewson and his two brothers, Bill and Andrew, left England, with their parents, William and Janet, to emigrate to Ontario in 1912, but returned so the three boys could defend the British Empire.

They survived the war and the brothers all married in England before the entire family moved back to Canada in 1923.

Joseph Hewson and his wife, Laura, went on to have eight children.

Mrs Johnson said: “I am delighted that Ryan Curran contacted me and that tracing the medal has inspired the students at the school. I think it’s marvellous to have found the medal.

“I do not know where my grandfather’s medals from the First World War went so this brings the family history from that era closer.”