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Mint:
London
Ruler:
Victoria (1837-1901)
Artist:
Wyon, Leonard Charles
Ruler:
Victoria regina
(With the title of)
The Army of India Medal's issue in 1849 having marked the previous half-century's combats in the region, further conflicts in the 1850s led in 1854 to the design and issue of a General Service Medal for the theatre, for which bars would be issued as each new campaign merited.
British India met Afghanistan at the North-West Frontier. Since British influence over Afghanistan competed with the Burmese kingdom of Ava and Russia, the region beyond the frontier, composed of a large number of more-or-less independent tribal statelets, was of great importance to British interests and required continual suppression by `punitive expeditions'. For the lesser ones of these the North West Frontier bar was awarded in 1869, although some expeditions were thought to merit individual bars. Later campaigns received bars of their own, and the last bar awarded for the India General Service Medal was one of these, for a campaign into Waziristan in 1894 and 1895. A party whose task was to delineate the frontier with Afghanistan had been attacked and embroiled in a fierce battle at its camp; this merited the kind of punishment that these campaigns were designed to deliver.
South Waziristan was for a short time in 2006 an independent Islamic fundamentalist state declared in defiance of Pakistan, of which it had otherwise been part since 1947. As Pakistan with suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in 2006, so Britain with fundamentalist insurgents in 1894. Among the troops sent to quell the earlier revolt was Private T. Savage of the 2nd Border Regiment, whose medal this is. Lester Watson purchased it at some point before 1928.
History note: Gift of L. Hoyt Watson; ex Lester Watson Collection, bt before 1928
Given by Lester Watson through Cambridge in America, 2009
Diameter: 36.1 mm
Weight: 41.98 g
Method of acquisition: Given (2009) by Watson, Lester
Production date: AD 1895
Inscription present: Bust of Victoria facing left
Inscription present: Victory crowning seated Classical warrior with laurel wreath
Accession number: CM.1261-2009
Primary reference Number: 141355
Watson Catalogue: 162
Ordering: M-0144
Previous object number: LW.0144
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Coins and Medals
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Indian General Service Medal (1854-95)" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/141355 Accessed: 2024-12-22 10:28:30
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/141355
|title=Indian General Service Medal (1854-95)
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-22 10:28:30|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-141355
To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:
<div class="text-center">
<figure class="figure">
<img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0144_281_29.jpg"
alt="Indian General Service Medal (1854-95)"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Indian General Service Medal (1854-95)</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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