Army Meritorious Service Medal, V.R. (1031 Havr. Boga Singh, 39th Bl. Infantry), contact marks, otherwise very fine and an extremely rare example of an Imperial issue to an Indian recipient £600-800

Ex Richard Magor Collection 2003.

M.S.M. Governor General’s Order No. 943 of 1888; ongoing research indicates that less than 25 of these Imperial M.S.Ms were awarded to Indians prior to the institution of the Indian Army Meritorious Service Medal.

Interestingly, Boga Singh received his M.S.M. in the same year that his regiment disgraced itself at the Rawalpindi Review, a torrential downpour of rain causing the men to fall out after losing their shoes in deep mud left behind by the cavalry and elephant battery contingents, an unfortunate scene enacted before the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin.

The 39th Bengal Infantry was formed from the Mutiny-raised Aligarh Levy and by 1864 it comprised individual Companies of Brahmans & Rajputs, Jats, Gurkhas & Hillmen, Ahirs, Chumars and Mehtars, Hindus, Cis-Sutlej Sikhs and a final Company ‘all races and castes’, while by 1884 that composition had changed to one Company of Brahmins, one Company of Rajputs, four Companies of ‘other Hindus’ (a brace of them of Jats), and two Companies of North Eastern Frontier Hillmen. The regiment was disbanded in 1890.