Meritorious Service Medal (Australia)
The Australian Meritorious Service Medal was an award given to warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men for long, meritorious or valuable services to the Australian Army. The medal was awarded to those who had given 22 years of meritorious service and had previously been awarded the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
There have been a variety of similar versions of the medal awarded throughout the Commonwealth, including the Meritorious Service Medal and the Meritorious Service Medal, each varying with the service, the country and the monarch at the time of the award.
Australians were awarded between 1222 and 1237 Meritorious Service Medals for gallantry or meritorious service in connection with the First World War. The Australian War Memorial database contains information on 1,216 ordinary awards of the medal, and 14 awards of the Meritorious Service Medal for Gallantry. The It's an Honour database contains 1,256 entries, but there are many duplicate entries. Neither source provides any information about awards after 1920.
