Personalised medals

[BlackcowboyBS]

Gentlemen,

I do have another question, I do know that british medals allways have the name of the holder engraved in the rim of the medal. I wonder if anybody could tell me the reason behind it and if this has started with the Waterloo medals or even earlier. 

With german medals this personalisation is pretty uncommon, only the waterloo medal of Brunswick and all the medals of the Kingdom of Hannover have these personalised medals too. Both could be explained by the ties to the british throne. So does anybody knows the reason why this personalisation was handled this way? Was there a specific reason? When was this tradion started? This would be interesting for me to know.

Thank you in advance

Edited January 27, 2022 by BlackcowboyBS

[QSAMIKE]

Just a little information.....

 

The naming of medals / medallions started in the 1700's as I have seen formally named medals that go back to the Capture Of Quebec in 1759 but these were only to officers and mostly Senior Officers.....   The naming of medals to all ranks started with the Waterloo Medal and then to cover the French Wars the Military and Naval General Service medals were instituted in 1847 and named to all ranks.  The naming of medals continued from Waterloo to a break in WW2 and continued afterwards......  They were named to give each officer and man recognition for their service in a specific campaign and battle..... 

 

Mike    

[ostprussenmann_new]

That is interesting; I never knew that.  I know after WWI, most medals besides gallantry were not named, besides on rare conditions like an issue of medals to a family member of a fallen warrior

[QSAMIKE]

1 hour ago, ostprussenmann_new said:

That is interesting; I never knew that.  I know after WWI, most medals besides gallantry were not named, besides on rare conditions like an issue of medals to a family member of a fallen warrior

It was only the period of World War Two that they were official not named.....    98% of medals before and after that were named.....   Some but only a small few Victorian medals were issued not named but were named at the expense of the regiment in which they served examples are the Crimea / Baltic / Northwest Canada.....  All the medals after WW2 were named.....  Gallantry medals to Other Ranks were named by the Government and those to Officers were often privately named at their own expense, again all the V.C.'s were Government named and Dated.......   In WW2 some Commonwealth countries named theirs, e.g. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa etc......