Awarded to Lieutenant Thomas Matthew Munro RNVR (1873-1958). Obverse: Head of King George VI. Legend: 'GEORGIVS VI D : G : BR : OMN : REX : F:D : IND : IMP'. Reverse: An oak tree and Royal crown supported by lions rampant, their heads turned away. Inscription: '1939', '1945'. Exergue: 'THE DEFENCE MEDAL'. Fitted with a bar and orange ribbon with pale green edges divided by a narrow black stripe.

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.