The Hanscom Family Weblog

The 1st of March 1857, is one among many days associated with the bestowal of the Victoria Cross upon heroic soldiers and sailors. The affair is in itself a trifle; yet it involves a principle of some importance. England cannot be said to be altogether happy in her modes of rewarding merit. The friendless and the unobtrusive are apt to be pushed aside, and to be supplanted by those who can call boldness and influence to their aid. Such at any rate has been the case in the army and navy; the humble soldiers and sailors have always received their full share of hard knocks, while the officers have carried off the honours and rewards. The nation has often felt and said that this was wrong; and the authorities of the War Office have judiciously yielded to the public sentiment in this among many other matters. It was in the middle of the Crimean war that the War Office undertook to ‘consider’ the subject; but a period of many months passed before the ’ consideration’ led to any results. At length on the 8th of February 1856, the London Gazette announced that Her Majesty had under her Royal Sign Manual been pleased to institute a new naval and military decoration entitled the ‘Victoria Cross.’ Unlike any other decoration recognised in our army and navy, this order is to be conferred for valour only—irrespective of rank or station; and the recipient becomes also entitled to a pension of £10 a year for life. The Victoria Cross is a simple affair as a work of art.

It consists of a bronze Maltese cross with the royal crest in the centre, and underneath it a scroll bearing the words ‘FOR VALOUR;’ it is suspended by a red ribbon if worn on the breast of a soldier, and by a blue ribbon if worn by a sailor. Trifling as it is, however, the men highly prize it, for hitherto it has been honestly bestowed. The reader will call to mind that remarkable ceremony in the summer of 1857, when the Queen bestowed the Victoria Cross, with her own hand, on sixty-one noble fellows in Hyde-park. Of those thus honoured, twenty-five were commissioned officers, fifteen were warrant and non-commissioned officers, and the remaining twenty-one were private soldiers and common seamen. In every instance there was a distinct recognition in the Official Gazette of the specific act of valour for which the cross was bestowed—whether arising out of the Crimean, the Chinese, or the Indian wars—in order to afford proof that merit, not favour, won the reward. Here we are told that Joseph Trewyas, seaman, ‘cut the hawsers of the floating-bridge in the Straits of Genitchi under a heavy fire of musketry;’ on which occasion he was wounded. ‘The late gallant Captain Sir William Peel,’ we are told, ‘took up alive shell that fell among some powder cases; the fuse was still burning, and the shell burst as he threw it over the parapet.’

Here is an incident which warms one’s blood while we read it: ‘In the charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade at Balaklava, Trumpet-Major Crawford’s horse fell and dismounted him, and he lost his sword; he was attacked by two Cossacks, when private Samuel Parkes (whose horse had been shot) saved his life by placing himself between them and the Trumpet-Major, and drove them away by his sword. In the attempt to follow the Light Cavalry Brigade in the retreat, they were attacked by six Russians, whom Parkes kept at bay, and retired slowly fighting, and defending the Trumpet-Major for some time.’ In spite of the wretched official English of this description (in which ‘he’ and ‘his,’ ‘they’ and ‘whose’ are hopelessly wandering to find their proper verbs), we cannot fail to take a liking for the gallant trooper Parkes. Then there was Serjeant-Maj or Henry, of the Artillery, who at the terrible battle of Inkermann, ‘defended the guns of his battery until he had received twelve bayonet wounds.’ During the siege of Sebastopol, a rifle-pit was occupied by two Russians, who annoyed our troops by their fire, whereupon ‘Private M’Gregor, of the Rifles, crossed the open space under fire, and taking cover under a rock, dislodged them, and occupied the pit.’