Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A post-war M.B.E. group of nine awarded to W. G. Webb, onetime Superintendent of the Federation of Malaya Prison Service, late Royal Armoured Corps and General List

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Civil) Member’s 2nd type breast badge; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Malaya, G.VI.R. (Major W. G. Webb, Gen. List); Army L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 2nd issue, Regular Army (Lt. W. G. Webb, Gen. List); Federation of Malaya, Order of the Realm, 5th Class breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel; Federation of Malaya, Sultan’s Coronation Medal 1952, flaw to enamel on one arm of the second to last, generally good very fine (9) £600-800

M.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1959.

George William Webb was born in December 1904 and, having graduated from University College, London, entered the Malayan Civil Service in 1928. Attached to the Chinese Secretariat, he served as an Assistant Protector of Chinese in Selangor and Penang, and in Singapore and Malacca in the early 1930s, prior to being appointed Superintendent of Prisons in Malacca in 1935.

Having then served as a District Officer in Christmas Island, he enlisted in the Royal Armoured Corps after the outbreak of hostilities, was appointed a Warrant Officer Class 2 in September 1942, and saw action in the Middle East. Subsequently commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant on the General List, he was awarded the L.S. & G.C. in 1950 and witnessed further active service back in Malaya as a Major. By 1956, however, he was acting as Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Selangor, presumably the background to his subsequent award of the M.B.E.