Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Army Meritorious Service Medal, G.V.R., 1st issue (38734 Gnr: -A.Sjt:- B. P. Whitbread. R.G.A.) good very fine £80-£100

M.S.M. London Gazette 29 August 1918.

Benjamin Percy Whitbread was awarded the M.S.M. for devotion to duty in East Africa whilst serving with the Royal Garrison Artillery, attached South African Field Artillery. He died a short while later at Dar es Salaam on 6 December 1918. The Ampfield Parish Council website - which commemorates the local men of Romsey (Hampshire) who fell in the Great War - offers a little more information:

‘Son of William and Laura Whitbread of Upper Knapp Lane, Benjamin Whitbread was a Gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery, East Africa Details. He died of a tropical disease, assumed to be malaria, in Tanganyika, just after the end of the war, aged 27. Benjamin is buried in Dar es Salaam (Upanga Road) Cemetery, Tanzania.’