Description
Honourable East India Company H.E.I.C. Indian Army Long Service & Good Conduct Medal for Europeans 1848 (VR), 2nd Issue, ‘Anchor Reverse’ 1859 issue, unnamed.
One possible shallow pinhole at 6 o’clock. A good condition example.
A very rare and unusual medal, one of about 100 medals which were posted to India by William Wyon, he says in a reply to a request from the India Office from 1873 that he had previously sent them 100 examples of a proposed Naval Long Service Medal, but was unsure if they were ever issued, it appears that they had instead issued them in place of the usual Indian Army Long Service Medal, 1st Issue, temporarily before realising their error.
Although European officers served in the forces of the British East India Company, and British units served in India, for a while there was also a locally-raised Indian Local European Army among the Imperial forces in the subcontinent; its units were eventually subsumed into the Indian Army proper.
The previous service of men so transferred was not forgotten, and in 1859 a Long Service & Good Conduct Medal was issued especially for them.
The true origins of the medal is unknown but it would appear that about 100 were struck in error by Wyon as a Naval design and possibly originally designed as a prototype of the very first Naval LS&GC medal and sent out to India in 1859. They are known to have been issued to all three presidencies but the mistake was only discovered the following year by the Government of Bombay.
