Medal for Long Service and Good Conduct (Military)
LS&GC Royal Navy

The Medal for Long Service and Good Conduct (Military) is a medal awarded to regular members of the armed forces. It was instituted by King George V in 1930 and replaced the Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal as well as the Permanent Forces of the Empire Beyond the Seas Medal. The medal was originally awarded to Regular Army warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the UK Armed Forces. It also had a number of territorial versions for the Permanent Forces of the British Dominions. The eligibility criteria were relaxed in 1947 to also allow the award of the medal to officers who had served a minimum period in the ranks before being commissioned. Since 2016, the eligibility was widened to include officers who had never served in the ranks, and so the medal can now be awarded to all regular members of the British Armed Forces who meet the required length of service.
Overview
In the complex British honours system, there were distinct awards for officers and men of the Navy, Army and Air Force, and separate awards for the Regular Force or Reserve components. Regular Force officers were not eligible for any long service awards since, as they held a commission, they were expected to serve honourably and for a long period of time. Reserve Force officers were eligible for various long service decorations that granted them the use of post-nominal letters, while Reserve Force other ranks were eligible for various long service and good conduct medals, but without post-nominals.
Predecessors
The United Kingdom's Army Long Service and Good Conduct Medal was instituted by King William IV in 1830.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Medal for Long Service and Good Conduct (Military)” as lS&GC Royal Navy. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1909201. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 1947, 2016 and 1830.
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This entry incorporates text from “Medal for Long Service and Good Conduct (Military)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.