Description
Army Meritorious Service Medal, GV, 21921 Sergeant George A. Virgo, Yorkshire Regiment attached Supply & Transport Corps, Indian Army, a rare inter-war award for the NWF India Campaign.
Officially impressed: “21921 Sjt G.A. Virgo. S. & T. Corps”
Announced in the London Gazette of 15th May 1920.
Under the heading: “His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of the Meritorious Service Medal to this man in recognition of valuable services rendered in connection with the operations on the North West Frontier, India.”
He was one of 12 Indian Army men honoured for this service in the Gazette, all European NCOs.
Total awards of the MSM were 36 to the British Army and 12 Indian Army.
George Albert Virgo, was a soldier in the Yorkshire Regiment aka the Green Howards during World War 1.
For his WW1 service he earned the British War & Victory Medal Pair.
By the end of the war he was a Lance Corporal, and looks to have taken the opportunity to continue his service as a Sergeant, on attachment to the Indian Army’s Supply & Transport Corps.
George Albert Virgo was born on 11th June 1890 in St Olave, Bermondsey, London.
His family came over to Yorkshire when he was a boy, being entered there on the 1901 census, where his father worked as a Leather Shaver in Leeds.
His brother Thomas William Virgo, named after his father, died in France on 28th April 1917, serving with D Company, 9th Bn West Yorkshire Regiment.
Following the end of WW1, and his additional service in the North West Frontier of India during 1919, he had returned back home to his family in Leeds by the 1921 Census.
Shown as a 31 year old “Navvy” working for W Airey and Son Builders.
He would stay in Leeds, where he married Carrie Moxon on 5th August 1922.
Later spotted on the 1939 Register where he was working as a “Builders Labourer” it was also noted that he had been putting these skills to use in WW2 serving with Air Raid Precautions, “ARP Rescue & Demolition”.
He later died in mid 1972.
