A Kaisar-I-Hind pair awarded to Mrs Meta May Maude Briscoe Middleton, Bihar & Orissa Province, British India

- Kaisar-i-Hind Medal. GV type with integral silver top bar. The top bar with hinged pin fittings on reverse
- Coronation Medal 1937. Mounted on female issue 'Bow Riband'. The mounting bar with pin fittings

Sold together with:

- Original typescript recommendation for the KIH
- Original named award certificate on illuminated Viceregal Lodge Simla for Coronation Medal, 12 May 1937

The medals un-named as issued

Medals Verification: Both medals confirmed as entitled, per below cited sources:

- Kaisar-I-Hind Medal. Silver: Published in Gazette of India issue 12 June 1941 (ref Civil & Military Gazette issue of 12 June 941)
- Coronation Medal 1937: Awarded to 'Mrs Middleton, per Award certificate issued from Viceregal Lodge, Simla, India dated 12 May 1937

The specific recommendation for Meta Middleton's KIH award is quoted below:

Quote,

Mrs. Meta Middleton.

You have for man years been closely identified with child welfare work and have rendered many valuable services to the movement. You took a leading part in setting the Ranchi Children's Welfare Centre on a sound working basis. In Bhagalpur you were equally prominent both in welfare work and in your efforts to effect improvements in the women's hospital. Your help has always been of a very practical and business-like kind, and in everything you have undertaken you have worked indefatigably.

By the Gracious Command of His Excellency the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, I present you with the Silver Kaisar-i-Hind Medal for public Service in India.

Unquote.

Meta May Maude Briscoe, Mrs. Middleton, née Birch, the daughter of J. B. Birch, a District Superintendent of Police in India, married Arthur Purling Middleton, at Hopetown, near Darjeeling, India on, 12 October 1910. Her husband - like his father before him - had been educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, and having briefly held a commission in the 1st Buckinghamshire Volunteer Battalion, was appointed to the Indian Civil Service in 1909. He spent most of his career successively as a Magistrate, Collector, and then Commissioner in Bihar and Orissa, and retired in 1945. Emigrating first to Kenya, and then to South Africa, he died in Pietermaritzburg in 1966, and his wife died there in 1973

The Middelton's younger son, Lieutenant Bernard Hastings Middleton, 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment, was 'Killed-in-Action' on 27 August 1943, in Sicily, during the Italy Campaign

See item codes 25986, 25921 & 25920 for the recipients companion miniature medals and the full-sized & miniature medals of her husband

Important: The items here being sold are the recipients 2 x full-size medals and original award typescript and the award certificate for the coronation medal - the images of the recipients husbands medals & her miniature awards are not included in the sale, and re only here illustrated for reference / provenance purposes. We will however forward the buyer soft-copy images of all the images by email attachment for their records

Condition: Mild toning EF

Code: 25994