A ‘Royal Visit to India’ M.V.O. awarded to Clement Filose, a Lieutenant-Colonel in Scindia’s Army and Military Secretary to His Highness the Maharajah of Gwalior

The Royal Victorian Order, M.V.O., Member’s 5th Class breast badge, silver, silver-gilt and enamel centre, the reverse officially numbered ‘127’, scratches to reverse and central rivet tightened, otherwise very fine £140-180

M.V.O. London Gazette 15 May 1906.

Clement Filose was born in 1853 and was educated at the Carmelite Monastery, Clondalkin and Carlow College. He entered the Gwalior State Service in 1872 and was advanced to Captain in 1880 and to Major in 1886. He subsequently served as Assistant Inspector-General - and Inspector-General - of the Gwalior Police 1893-97 and as an A.D.C. to the Maharajah of Scindia 1899-1901. He was awarded the M.V.O. on the occasion of the Prince of Wales’s visit to India in 1905-06, by which time he was serving as Military Secretary to the Maharajah of Gwalior. Filose, who was also appointed a Knight of the Vatican’s Order of St. Gregory, died in October 1938.

The association of the Filose family with Gwalior goes back to the eighteenth century, when Michael Filose went out to India and entered the service of the native chief. Thereafter, it has been said, the Maharajahs of Gwalior always had a Filose as right-hand man in their affairs of State; sold with a photocopy of a letter from the Central Chancery confirming that the M.V.O. (5th Class), numbered ‘127’, was awarded to this recipient.