Surrey Infantry Museum Medals
Medals of General Sir Ivo Vesey KCB KBE CMG DSO
(Click to enlarge)
General Sir Ivo Vesey KCB KBE CMG DSO.
The
medals and decorations are:-
Knight Commander of the Most Honourable Order of Bath (star
and badge)
Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British
Empire (star and badge)
Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael
and St George
Distinguished Service Order
South African Medal (1899-1902) Bars Laing's Nek, Transvaal,
Relief of Ladysmith, Orange Free State, Cape Colony
King Edward's South African Medal (1901-02) Bars South Africa
1902, South Africa 1901
1914 Star Bar 5th Aug - 22nd Nov 1914
British War Medal (1914-20)
Victory Medal with Mention in Despatches
King George V Silver Jubilee Medal
King George VI Coronation Medal
Officer of the Legion of Honour (France) (with female head
and dated '1870')
Order of the Crown (Belgium)
Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus (Italy)
Croix de Guerre (1914-18) (Belgium)
He was born 11th August 1876, the second son of Major General G
H Vesey, and educated at Wellington College and Sandhurst. General
Vesey was commissioned into The Queen’s Royal Regiment in
February 1897 and served with them in South Africa from 1899 to
1901. An early task of his was to carry out a reconnaissance to
try and discover the fate of the armoured train which the Boers
had captured and from which the young Winston Churchill had been
taken prisoner. He was later severely wounded. After attending the
Staff College, Camberley, in 1911 he obtained Staff appointments
of increasing importance and finished the First World War as Deputy
Director of Organisations at the War Office.
In 1923 he was loaned to the Royal Air Force as their Director of Organisations and Staff Duties and was given the temporary rank of Air Vice Marshal. In 1935 he went to India where he finally became Chief of the General Staff until his retirement in June 1939. In the Second World War he served as a Battalion Commander in the Home Guard as well as becoming Colonel of The Queen’s Royal Regiment. He died on 19th February 1975, age 98.
