MAY BE WON IN PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 20

MAY BE WON IN PEACE

STORY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS

The original ■ Victoria Cross struck for submission to and approved of by Queen Victoria on its institution in 1856 is now in the museum of the Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall. It came into the possession of the donor, Lieutenant- ColonelM. P. Hancock, D.5.0., Royal Fusiliers, from his grandfather, who founded the firm which made and still makes the decoration. ■ . • ' The bronze for the cross came originally from a Eussian gun taken in the Crimea, and on that source being exhausted, is taken from a Chinese gun, probably owing to the nature of the metal. Only two bars or clasps have been won, the recipients being A; MartinLeake, Lieutenant, R. A.M.C. ('' Lori-, don Gazette," 18th February, 1915), who as Surgeon-Captain in the .Indian Volunteers won the cross when serving with the South African Constabulary ("London Gazette," 13th May, 1903); and N. G. Chevasse, Captain, R.A.M.C., attached to 1/10 Liverpool Regiment, who won the cross at Guillemont on 9th August, 1916, and a bar at Wieltjie on 31st July-2nd August, 1917, where he was killed. Of all the many crosses won only eight have been subsequently forfeited. A pension of £10 per annum is attached to the cross in the case of holders below the rank of commissioned officer, but should any holder —commissioned officer or other —be unable,

in, consequence of age or of infirmity occasioned' by causes beyond his own control, to:!, "earn a livelihood, such holder may be granted an annuity provided that the total amount of the annuity thus granted, together with any other pension received from public funds, shall not exceed £75 a year. ' The cross has been conferred three times upon father and son, including Lord Roberts and his son j and upon two pairs .of brothers. "■-.'■ The Victoria Crosses granted before the Great War numbered's27. The Victoria Crosses granted for the Great War numbered 631 and two bars. The Victoria Crosses granted since the Great War number four* It is not generally known (says a writer'in the "Daily Mail") that the decoration is awarded for acts ■ committed in circumstances of extreme danger by members of the Navy and the Army not in the presence of the enemy. Under this head, in 1867, the cross was granted to Pte. Timothy O'Hea, Ist Battalion Rifle Brigade, who, at a railway station between Quebec and -Montreal, extinguished a frre in a railway car containing ammunition. In 1858 it' was decided to extend the decoration to non-imilitary persons acting as volunteers against mutineers at Lucknow and elsewhere. Another extension came in 1881—the admission of members of the Indian Ecclesiastical Establishments. The Eev. J. A. Adams won the cross at Kabul.