Volunteer Force Long Service (India & the Colonies), E.VII.R. (Captn. M. P. W. Schembry, Rohilkhand Vol. Rifles), officially engraved naming, minor edge bruise, extremely fine £60-80

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Long Service Medals from the Collection formed by John Tamplin.

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Rohilkhand Volunteer Rifles

Michael Patrick Wymer Schembry was a railwayman all his working life in India, first gaining an appointment in the Traffic Department of the North Western Railway in June 1880. Advanced to Traffic Inspector in June 1896, he transferred to the East Coast Railway as an Assistant Traffic Superintendent in September 1898 and to the Oudh & Rohilkhand Railway in June 1901, shortly after which he was appointed Deputy Traffic Superintendent of the same railway at Bareilly. Following further postings to Moradabad and Lucknow, he transferred to the Eastern Bengal State Railway at Saidpur in 1912, and to the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway as a Deputy Manager in 1915. Schembry retired in March of the following year

In terms of military service, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Rohilkhand Volunteer Rifles in 1901, following service in the ranks, and was awarded the Indian Volunteer Force Long Service Medal in GO 902, published in the Gazette of India on 29 August 1903 - the same year that the Rohilkhand Volunteer Rifles amalgamated with their fellow Volunteers in Oudh - and the Indian Volunteer Forces Officer’s Decoration in the Gazette of India on 27 March 1909. Having then resigned his commission, he was re-appointed a Supernumerary Major in his old corps soon after the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, in which capacity he served until resigning his commission for a final time in March 1917, when he was granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel; sold with related research.