Orders, Decorations and Medals

Volunteer Force Long Service (India & the Colonies), G.V.R. (Captn. F. G. Beckett, 2nd Bn. Bl. N. Ry. Voltr. Rfl. Corps) officially engraved naming, very fine £80-100

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

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Ernest Godfrey Beckett was employed on the Bengal Nagpur Railway. Serving in the ranks of the Bengal Nagpur Railway Volunteer Rifle Corps, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant on 11 October 1895 and promoted to Lieutenant in April 1898 and Captain in April 1902. Captain Beckett was awarded the Volunteer Force Long Service Medal, this published in I.A.O. 290 of June 1914, at the time he was serving in the 2nd (Nagpur) Battalion. A year later he was awarded the Indian Volunteer Forces Officers’ Decoration, this published in the Gazette of India of 17 July 1915. Beckett was promoted to an Honorary Major in July 1916. On the creation of the Indian Defence Force in 1917, he was appointed a Supernumerary Captain in the 2-36th Bengal-Nagpur Railway Battalion, I.D.F. In Thacker’s Indian Directory for the years 1914-22, he was listed as the Agency Engineer in the Orissa Feudetory States, Public Works Department, based at Sambalpur. With copied research.