Territorial Decoration in the context of "Volunteer Army (British)"

Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler CH CIE MC TD FRS FBA FSA (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeologist and officer in the British Army. Over the course of his career, he served as Director of both the National Museum of Wales and London Museum, Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, and the founder and Honorary Director of the Institute of Archaeology in London, in addition to writing twenty-four books on archaeological subjects.

Born in Glasgow to a middle-class family, Wheeler was raised largely in Yorkshire before moving to London in his teenage years. After studying classics at University College London (UCL), he began working professionally in archaeology, specialising in the Romano-British period. During World War I he volunteered for service in the Royal Artillery, being stationed on the Western Front, where he rose to the rank of major and was awarded the Military Cross. Returning to Britain, he obtained his doctorate from UCL before taking on a position at the National Museum of Wales, first as Keeper of Archaeology and then as Director, during which time he oversaw excavation at the Roman forts of Segontium, Y Gaer, and Isca Augusta with the aid of his first wife, Tessa Wheeler. Influenced by the archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers, Wheeler argued that excavation and the recording of stratigraphic context required an increasingly scientific and methodical approach, developing the "Wheeler method". In 1926, he was appointed Keeper of the London Museum; there, he oversaw a reorganisation of the collection, successfully lobbied for increased funding, and began lecturing at UCL.

Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin, MBE, TD (30 July 1914 – 25 April 1999) was an Irish journalist, author, sports official, and the sixth president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), serving from 1972 to 1980. He succeeded his uncle as Baron Killanin in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1927, when he was 12, which allowed him to sit in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster as Lord Killanin upon turning 21.

The Volunteer Officers' Decoration, post-nominal letters VD, was instituted in 1892 as an award for long and meritorious service by officers of the United Kingdom's Volunteer Force. Award of the decoration was discontinued in the United Kingdom when it was superseded by the Territorial Decoration in 1908, but it continued to be awarded in some Crown Dependencies until 1930.

The grant of the decoration was extended in 1894 by the institution of a separate new decoration, the Volunteer Officers' Decoration for India and the Colonies, that could be awarded to commissioned officers of all Volunteer Forces throughout the British Empire and India.