It was announced on March, 1897 that the Queen would go in procession to St Paul’s for a Thanksgiving Service for ‘all the blessings of her reign’. The Diamond Jubilee Medal was instituted the same year by Royal Warrant as a British decoration. The medal was awarded to members of the Royal Family and the court, guests at the celebrations of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee and the soldiers and sailors that paraded that day in London.

Description:

Materials: The majority of the British medals and clasps are made of solid silver, though some were issue in bronze versions, mainly to Indian non-combatants. The majority of the British campaign awards are circular, usually 36mm in diameter.

Ribbons: Medals are worn suspended from their own specific ribbons. These were first made of silk but cotton was increasingly used as the nineteenth century developed. Their own colours often have a symbolic significance: the equal stripes of the ‘1939 to 1945 Star,’ for example, are dark blue to represent the service of the Royal and Merchant Navies, red, to represent that of the Armies and light blue to represent that of Air Forces.

Ribbon width can vary slightly though it is generally 32mm wide.

Ribbon – Broad central blue band with wide white stripes, and narrow blue stripes at the edges

Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Medal (1897) ribbon

Suspender - Ring

Type – Jubilee medal

Eligibility – Members of The Royal Family, Royal Households and guests. Envoys, Foreign Ambassadors and Heads-of Missions, Colonial Prime Ministers and members of the Indian and Colonial Contingents attending the Jubilee. Officers, soldiers, sailors of the naval and military contingents participation in jubilee activities

Awarded for – Participation in Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee

Established – 1897

Designer – Clement Emptmeyer

Naming – issued unnamed

Description – The medal is 36 mm in diameter and very similar to the 1887 Jubilee medal. The obverse shows the crowned and veiled profile of Queen Victoria and the text “VICTORIA D.G. REGINA ET IMPERATRIX F.D.” The reverse has the inscription “IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 60TH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA 20 JUNE 1897” set below a crown and a wreath made up of thistles, roses and shamrocks tied at the base by ribbon.

This guide will help you through all the parts and descriptions of military medals

Sources:

Major L L Gordon ‘British Battles and Medals’

< gov.uk/medals-campaigns-descriptions-and-eligibility>

Some of the material on this page was also partially derived from

<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Queen_Victoria_Diamond_Jubilee_Medal>

London Gazette 14 March 1898

Which are released under the terms of

Creativecommons.org/licenses/by-s/3.0/.