Awarded to Edward Owen Cox (1864-1921). Obverse: Head of King George V (left). Legend: 'GEORGIVS V BRITT : OMN : REX ET IND : IMP:'. Reverse: Within a laurel garland in relief, the bow view of a drifter, a ship in the distance (right).Exergue: 'FOR WAR SERVICE MERCANTILE MARINE 1914-1918'. Fitted with a bar and light green and scarlet watered silk ribbon divided by a narrow white stripe.

Edward Owen Cox or Owen-Cox was born in Maiden Newton, Dorset, the son of Thomas Cox, a farmer. He attended Dorset County School and went on to train in medicine, obtaining a LRCP at Edinburgh in 1886 and a LRFPS at Glasgow. In 1896 he married Gwendoline Evelyn Fitzmaurice Aitkin, (Turner) at Gillingham, Dorset- a divorcee, of somewhat higher social status. Dr Cox worked as a GP at Gillingham in 1891, then at Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire in 1901. In the 1911 census the couple are resident at Deptford, London. During World War 1, Dr Cox served as a surgeon in ‘Annandale Castle’. Originally a passenger ship belonging to the Union-Castle Line, she was requisitioned as an armed merchant cruiser from 1914-1919. The ship was stationed at the Cape and actively employed in the campaigns against German South-West Africa and German East Africa. From 1916, she was redeployed to the North Atlantic and North Sea.

Dr Cox died in Weymouth in 1921.