Circular gilt bronze medal with loop for ribbon suspension; the face with a Geneva (Greek) cross centrally within a laurel wreath and circumscribed ‘BRITISH RED CROSS SOCIETY: FOR WAR SERVICE: 1914-1918’; the reverse inscribed ‘INTER ARMA CARITAS’ (Mercy between armies) within a laurel wreath; on original ribbon with top bar for wear, the reverse signed ‘J. R. GAUNT LONDON’.
The Medal was instituted in 1920 and awarded to Members of the British Red Cross Society or its Voluntary Aid Detachments who served in the U.K. during the period 4 August 1914 to 31 December 1919 and were therefore not eligible for British military medals and who had undertaken at least a thousand hours of unpaid service or had been ambulance drivers and stretcher bearers who had given at least 500 hours of unpaid service. The British National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War was formed in August 1870 and gave relief to both Prussian and French armies in the war of that year. In 1905 the Society was reconstituted as the British Red Cross Society with Queen Alexandra as its President. Throughout World War I Red Cross volunteers worked in hospitals, convalescent homes, rest stations, packing centres, medical supply depots and work parties. The Society also supplied motorised ambulances to battlefields and set up centres for the wounded and missing in France.
|