CEYLON, Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps, a bronze award medal by Phillips, rifleman right, rev. tea plant above motto, 45mm (cf. DNW 4.xii.2002, 219). Very fine, rare £70-90

The Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps was a volunteer corps consisting of planters, government officials, businessmen and others. On declaration of war in 1914 they left for Europe. With Turkey having entered the war the volunteers were detained for service in Egypt and attached as a 5th Company to the Wellington Infantry Battalion of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces in the ANZAC division. As many of the volunteers later received commissions in other units, the total number of the contingent shrank, and though a remnant did serve in Gallipoli, within a year the contingent had ceased to exist