Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Volunteer Force Long Service (India & the Colonies), G.V.R. (Capt. G. H. Goff, E.B. Ry. Bn., A.F.I.), officially impressed naming, minor official corrections to first initial and unit, good very 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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Eastern Bengal Railway Battalion

George Herbert Goff was born in April 1885 and was educated at Dover College and the R.M.C. Sandhurst. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the East Lancashire Regiment in May 1907, he served in the 2nd Battalion in India until resigning his commission in November 1909, in order to pursue a career in the Indian State Railways. By 1914 he was serving as a Chief Clerk in the District Traffic Superintendent’s Office of the North Western Railway at Lahore and, as verified by Thacker’s Indian Directory, he went on to enjoy a multitude of regional appointments in the period leading up to his retirement in April 1940, latterly as a District Traffic Superintendent in the Eastern Bengal Railway

In terms of military service, Goff was originally commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the North Western Railway Volunteer Rifles in October 1914, following earlier service in the ranks. Granted a regular commission in the Army Service Corps in January 1916, he transferred to the Territorial Force with an appointment in the 2/5th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment, and served out in France from February 1917 until the end of the War, onetime as Battalion C.O. in the rank of Acting Lieutenant-Colonel, and latterly as an Acting Major in the 14th Battalion. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War & Victory Medals, and was twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 23 May 1918 and 8 July 1919 refer

Returning to India after the War, Goff was sent on a foreign assignment with Mesopotamian Railways, October 1920 to July 1921, following which he took up an appointment with the Oudh & Rohilkhand Railway. And his subsequent movements with the Indian State Railways are largely charted by his ensuing appointments in the Auxiliary Forces of India, including his time as a Captain in the Eastern Bengal Railway Battalion - he was advanced to Honorary Major in that corps in May 1932. Goff was awarded the Indian Volunteer Force Long Service Medal in IAO 832 of 26 November 1927 and the Indian Volunteer Officers’ Decoration in the Gazette of India on 5 May 1928

He died in Cromer, Norfolk in October 1957, aged 72 years, leaving a widow, the Hon. Angela Estelle, daughter of the 2nd Baron Airedale; sold with related research.