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Mint:
London
Ruler:
Victoria (1837-1901)
Artist:
Wyon, William
Ruler:
Victoria regina
(With the title of)
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 no bars were instituted (and thus no awards made) until 1850, when 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.
Although most of the campaigns for which the MGSM was awarded were fought in the Peninsular War, leading to the piece being frequently known as the Peninsular Medal, it was also awarded for conflicts far further afield. These included the War of 1812, sometimes known as the Anglo-American War, on the other side of the Atlantic.
Originating in British arrests of United States ships in the cause of the blockade of France necessitated by the Napoleonic Wars, and various resentments left over from the American War of Independence, the War included two United States invasions of Canada. The first, in 1812, ended ignominiously; the US force turned back toward Detroit after two defeats at the hands of Canadian militia, and then its leader Brigadier General William Hull surrendered there after he was allowed to discover a fictional British plan to capture the city using native American troops.
The bar for the capture of Detroit bears the name of the old Fort Detroit, even though this had been demolished after a fire in 1805. The medal which displays this bar in the Watson Collection was awarded to Captain John Bostwick of the Norfolk Regiment of the Canadian Militia. Lester Watson purchased the medal in 1927.
History note: Gift of L. Hoyt Watson; ex Lester Watson Collection, bt 1927
Given by Lester Watson through Cambridge in America, 2009
Diameter: 36 mm
Weight: 36.66 g
Method of acquisition: Given (2009) by Watson, Lester
1848 - 1850
Inscription present: Bust of Victoria facing left
Inscription present: Victoria on dais placing wreath on head of kneeling Duke of Wellington
Accession number: CM.1339-2009
Primary reference Number: 141433
Watson Catalogue: 245
Ordering: M-0222
Previous object number: LW.0222
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) "Military General Service Medal 1793-1814" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/141433 Accessed: 2024-12-23 00:34:24
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/141433
|title=Military General Service Medal 1793-1814
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-23 00:34:24|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://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-141433
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_0222_281_29.jpg"
alt="Military General Service Medal 1793-1814"
class="img-fluid" />
<figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Military General Service Medal 1793-1814</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
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