Long Service Medals from the Collection formed by John Tamplin

A fine Great War M.C. group of six awarded to Major G. C. A. Cox, Indian Volunteer Forces, late Leicestershire Regiment

Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately inscribed, ‘Capt. G. C. A. Cox, Leics. Regt.’; 1914-15 Star (Capt. G. C. A. Cox, Leic. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt G. C. A. Cox); Indian Volunteer Forces Officer’s Decoration, G.V.R., the reverse officially engraved, ‘Maj. G. C. A. Cox, 1/7th E.I. Rly. Cps.’; Volunteer Force Long Service (India & the Colonies), G.V.R. (Captn. G. C. A. Cox, 1/7/E.I. Rly. Corps, I.D.F.), officially impressed naming, unit officially corrected on the last, good very fine and better (6) £1000-1200

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

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East Indian Railway Corps

M.C. London Gazette 17 December 1917

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in leading his company through a heavy hostile barrage, digging in, and directing and controlling the carrying of ammunition and supplies to the front line, most of the time under shell fire. Another time he again brought his company through a barrage, and, his guides being wounded, he had to find out the forward posts and situation, which he did, and consolidated his position

George Cecil Archer Cox was born in India in May 1877, the son of a Colonel. Entering the Indian State Railways as a Temporary Junior Engineer in January 1903, he was granted a permanent position in October 1906 with the East India Railway, and went on to enjoy a long and successful career, culminating with his appointment as Superintendent of Way and Works at Morabad - interim postings included several years at Sutna as Resident Engineer

He was also a keen member of the Indian Volunteers, having originally been commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the East Indian Railway Volunteer Rifles in January 1904. Advanced to Lieutenant in June 1908, it seems he may have been on leave back in England at the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, for he was appointed a Temporary Lieutenant in the 6th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment that October - and advanced to Temporary Captain prior to arriving in France in July 1915. Subsequently awarded the M.C. for his courage at Ypres in November 1917, and advanced to Temporary Major, he was also, in the words of one obituary notice, ‘wounded twice and badly gassed’. Certainly his entry in the Officers of the Indian State Railways (July, 1929), confirms that he was evacuated from Boulogne as a result of wounds in April 1918

Cox returned to India after relinquishing his British Army commission in June 1919, and was awarded the Indian Volunteer Force Long Service Medal in IAO 247 of 30 March 1920, and the Indian Volunteer Forces Officers’ Decoration in the Gazette of India on 2 December 1922. Latterly Commandant of the 3rd Battalion, East India Railway Regiment, he resigned his commission in December 1927 and retired from the East India Railway in June 1929, following which he settled in Victoria, British Columbia, where he died in January 1933, aged 55 years, having ‘never fully recovered from the effects of gas’ received in the Great War

Sold with a fine array of original photographs from India, subject matter including the Volunteers, hunting and railways (approximately 110 images), the whole mounted on card and largely captioned; together with a quantity of research.