This is a miniature of the Order of the Crown of Siam, Member (Vijitrabhorn) class, ranked as the Fifth Class, which corresponds to the grade of Knight within the conventional five-class European honours system. Instituted in AD 1869 by King Rama V of Siam, the order ranks immediately below the Order of the White Elephant.
The badge is shaped as a twenty-petalled rosette, surmounted by a foliate suspension piece. The central medallion displays an embossed depiction of the Great Crown of Victory (Phra Maha Phichai Mongkut) resting upon a pedestal tray, with divine rays radiating from its apex. The medallion is enclosed by a beaded border. Encircling the medallion, the twenty petals are arranged in two tiers—the upper tier in red and the lower tier in green—both inlaid with translucent enamel.
The reverse is plain, featuring within its central disc the engraved royal cypher “จ.ป.ร.” (Chor Por Ror), an abbreviation for “จุฬาลงกรณ์ ปรมราชาธิราช” (Chulalongkorn Parama Rajadhiraj), which translates as “Chulalongkorn, Supreme Sovereign of Kings”.
King Rama V (Chulalongkorn) succeeded to the throne of his father, King Mongkut, at a young age in AD 1868, presiding over a reign that spanned forty-two years. During the regency of his minority, he toured Singapore, Java, and India to examine colonial administrative frameworks in search of statecraft models. Upon attaining his majority, he coalesced with a cohort of young princes and officials styling themselves ‘Young Siam’ to implement modernising reforms. Following the Front Palace Crisis of AD 1874 instigated by conservative nobles, he dismantled the hereditary privileges of the grand aristocratic families through an incremental approach, establishing a central Finance Office to consolidate monopoly tax receipts and subsequently founding the Privy Purse Bureau in AD 1890. In terms of social transformation, he progressively abolished hereditary servitude and debt slavery from AD 1874 onwards, terminating unfree labour bonds and corvée obligations; by AD 1905, he had fully introduced universal conscription for a standing army alongside a general capitation tax, thereby reconstituting traditional subjects as citizens directly answerable to national statutes. Administratively and institutionally, he formed a modern cabinet centred upon royal princes in AD 1892 and directed Prince Damrong, through the Ministry of the Interior’s Thesaphiban system, to convert peripheral tributary polities such as Chiang Mai into centrally administered provinces, rapidly suppressing frontier insurrections with modernised military force. Concurrently, he promulgated a codified penal code, enacted the Sangha Act in AD 1902 to centralise the Buddhist monastic hierarchy and reinforce national solidarity, and sponsored the extensive development of modern schools, hospitals, railways, and telegraph networks. Confronted with the imperial encroachments of Britain and France and the naval blockade of the Paknam Incident in AD 1893, he ceded peripheral territories to persuade the foreign powers to relinquish their extraterritorial jurisdictions. Furthermore, he undertook two formal tours of Europe, in AD 1897 and AD 1907, projecting the posture of an enlightened, civilised monarch to negotiate for equal treatment among sovereign powers. Upon his demise in AD 1910, Rama V had preserved the realm’s sovereignty and transformed Siam into a centralised, modern nation-state.
Barac, Borna. Reference Catalogue Orders Medals and Decorations of the World : instituted until 1945 : Part IV Gold Book P-Z. Zagreb: OBOL d.o.o., 2016. (Borna Barac IV#)
