IDENTIFIERS ----------- id: 141424 accession number: CM.1330-2009 DATE AUDIT ---------- created: Saturday 6 August 2011 updated: Monday 15 January 2024 DESCRIPTIVE DATA ---------------- object type: It had been unusual, before the reign of Queen Victoria, for medals to be issued recognising service in campaigns (except perhaps those organised by the East India Company). This left, for example, veterans of the Napoleonic Wars with nothing to display for their service, and therefore three medals were instituted in 1847-1848 for campaigns of the previous fifty years, in the East India Company's forces, in the Royal Navy or in the Army, the last of which was the Military General Service Medal, instituted in 1847 and first struck in 1848. The intentions of the medal committee are hard to divine, as the medal was struck carrying the dates `1793-1814' in the reverse, but the earliest campaign considered was that in Egypt from 1798 to 1801. Earlier battles may have been deleted from consideration due to the shortage of surviving veterans of engagements of the previous century. This was one of the paradoxes shared by all three of the General Service Medals, another being that the monarch whose portrait they bore, Queen Victoria, was not him for whom the recipients had fought. The MGSM, given the period that it covered, was mainly awarded for campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars, which on land had mostly been fought in the Iberian Peninsula. For this reason the medal is often called the `Peninsular Medal' even though it also covered campaigns in Egypt, Java and America. The Peninsular War arose from Emperor Napoleon I of France combining with Spain to occupy ports on the western coast of Portugal, in order to break the British naval blockade of France in 1807, which he followed in 1808 by a military takeover of Spain. Spanish resistance forces administered several defeats to occupying French forces, however, and this and a concomitant Portuguese uprising persuaded Britain to commit land forces against Napoleon for the first time in some years, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, the later Duke of Wellington (who is seen on the reverse of the MGSM). Campaigning began in 1808 and was heroic but inconsistent, but Anglo-Portuguese victories, however fumbled, were a sufficient worry to Napoleon that he himself led French reinforcements into Spain in late 1808, forcing the British, now under Sir John Moore, back onto Corunna and then to evacuate it in 1809. In the interval he had brought the Anglo-Portuguese forces to battle on four occasions, two of which were small cavalry clashes that became known as the Battles of Sahagún and Benevente, for which the bar to this medal was awarded to Sergeant J. Elliott of the 10th Hussars. Lester Watson purchased it from the London dealers Baldwin in 1927. title: Military General Service Medal 1793-1814 NOTES ----- type: history note value: Gift of L. Hoyt Watson; ex Lester Watson Collection, bt Baldwin 1927 LICENSING --------- text license status: CC0 image license status: CC-BY-NC-SA OWNERSHIP --------- instutition: The Fitzwilliam Museum department: Coins and Medals collection: Lester Watson Collection creditline: Given by Lester Watson through Cambridge in America, 2009 STABLE URL ---------- url: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/141424 TECHNIQUES ---------- struck CATEGORIES ------ category: medal DATING ------ creation date: 1848 - 1850 creation date earliest: 1848 creation date latest: 1850 CREATORS -------- maker: London maker: Victoria (1837-1901) maker: Wyon, William maker: Victoria regina DIMENSIONS ---------- dimension: Diameter units: mm value: 36.2 dimension: Weight units: g value: 36.08 CITATIONS -------- British Battles and Medals 7th edn British and other Campaign and Gallantry Medals From the Collection of Lester Watson (d. 1959) --- IMAGES surrogate: large format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 122 pixels surrogate: mid format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 122 pixels surrogate: original format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 122 pixels surrogate: preview format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_281_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 122 pixels surrogate: large format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 135 pixels surrogate: mid format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 135 pixels surrogate: original format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 135 pixels surrogate: preview format: jpeg location: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/cm/cm15/LW_0213_282_29.jpg height: 365 pixels width: 135 pixels