British War Medal 1914-18

Awarded to Lieutenant Thomas Matthew Munro RNVR (1873-1958). Obverse: Head of King George V (left). Legend: 'GEORGIVS V BRITT : OMN : REX ET IND : IMP:' Reverse: A Knight on horseback (right) a short sword in his right hand, trampling on the German shield, skull and cross-bones. Legend: '1914-18': Engraved on the edge: 'LIEUT. T.M. MUNRO R.N.V.R.' Fitted with a bar and orange watered silk ribbon edged with blue, black and white stripes.

Lieutenant Thomas Matthew Munro RNVR (sometimes spelled Monro) was born in Calcutta to Thomas Robert Munro, Superintendent Port Commission Calcutta and Ellen Eliza his wife formerly Herring. His mother was born in Calcutta but his father's side of the family were Scottish. His brother, Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Brodie Munro OBE obtained a medical degree in Edinburgh and served in the Indian Medical Service. Like his father and brother Thomas Matthew was educated in Scotland but worked and married in India. He joined the freemason's lodge in Calcutta in 1903, his employment given as ' Port Trust Officer'. He patented an improvement in distributers for sand pump dredgers and similar machines in 1914 and served In the Calcutta Port Defence Volunteer Corps during World War I. After the war, Thomas Munro settled in Edinburgh with his wife Annette Eliza (Stapleton) and two children - John Horne and Ellen Agnes. He died in Birkenhead in 1958. By now he had remarried Eleanor Constance who was a beneficiary of his will together with his brother and son.

Object Details

ID: MED2245
Collection: Coins and medals
Type: War medal
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Mackennal, Edgar Bertram; McMillan, William
Events: World War I, 1914-1918
Date made: 1919
People: Munro, Thomas Matthew
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Overall: 36 mm