India General Service Medal 1854-95

[Tony Farrell]

Instituted in 1854 for issue to British & Indian forces engaged in a number of actions, a total of 23 clasps being authorised until it was replaced by the India medal in 1895. They are as follows: Pegu, Persia, North West Frontier, Umbeyla, Bhootan, Looshai, Perak, Jowkai 1877-78, Naga 1879-80, Burma 1885-87, Sikkim 1888, Hazara 1888, Burma 1887-89, Burma 1887-9 (the same action as the previous clasp, but with a slight difference in the dating), Chin Lushai 1889-90, Lushai 1889-92, Samana 1891, Hazara 1891, NE Frontier 1891, Hunza 1891, Burma 1889-92, Chin Hills 1892-93, Kachin Hills 1892-93 and finally Waziristan 1894-95.

Issued initially only in silver, it was struck in bronze from 1885 onwards for issue to bearers and ancillary personnel until its supersession in 1895. It was one of the longest serving medals, being issued for over forty years.

This particular example is for the second Burma war, which resulted after a treaty (from the first palarver) was torn up by some bolshy Burmese chief-type chappie somethingorother. The swine even had the audacity to fire upon Her Maj's warships. So, in typical colonial fashion, we invaded and drubbed the bugger. This medal is to the 80th Foot's Paymaster, a feller named Bodle - and a regimental contemporary of a certain Garnett Wolsey.

[Tony Farrell]

Removed

[Ed_Haynes]

My friend Tony's history needs some fine-tuning but this is indeed a fascinating medal, and not well studied.

Ed Haynes

[Rick Research]

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[Tony Farrell]

Just seeing if this automatically transfers over to the Brit & C'wealth Forum.

Erm.... obviously not.

[Gareth Bodle]

Hi,
I found this reference on google on the internet. I am George Bodles great great great grandson and I have two of these medals, his (so I thought) and his sons wifes father's - Captain Donald Darroch of the 40th Foot.
So I am curious as to whether you have the right provenance for the medal shown? if so than we have a 3rd from some one else!

I am not sure who is on this site or how regularly people read it but I would be interested to know more.
Cheers
Gareth Bodle
NZ

[peter monahan]

Interesting! Presumably a look at the naming on the edge would be step 1. Then, if it is 'George Bodles, Paymaster' trying to figure out how two medals got issued to the same guy.

It was not uncommon, BTW, for Victorian soldiers to 'acquire' a second set. The medals were oftenm sewn directly to a tunic, so a senior NCO or an officer might well want to have two tunics so equipped. Bought from time-expired soldiers, which was illegal but apparently rarely prosecuted, they could be re-named easily enough if originally engraved, as opposed to impressed. One test is to compare the thickness of the rims to another sample, as 'name erasing' the set before re-engraving would take some metal off the edge of each medal.

Fascinating thread! I hope it keeps up. I think Tony is still an active poeter on this list, so with luck we'll here more!

Peter

[dafide]

This is definitely a good thread to keep an eye on and hopefully we can get more information put up on here