The medal has become one of the most coveted awards for valour in the world and the Commonwealth's highest honour for conspicuous bravery in the face of the enemy.
"I am proud of it, proud of this tie which links the lowly brave to his Sovereign."
Queen Victoria wanted something that would single out the bravest of the brave in her far flung armed forces. She requested a medal that "shall only be awarded for most conspicuous bravery…. in the presence of the enemy." She wanted the medal available to all ranks and retrospective to June 1854 to include the Crimean War.
The Queen’s husband, Prince Albert named the new decoration the Victoria Cross. The Queen studied numerous drawings of how the cross should appear and at length selected one that resembled the Gold Army Cross awarded during the Peninsular War against Napoleon in the early 1800s.
The Medal
After a few false starts a medal was cast which met with the Queen’s approval. It was plain, as she requested, suspended from a crimson ribbon for the Army and a blue ribbon for the Navy. (With the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918, King George V changed all ribbons to crimson.) The jewelers, Messrs Hancocks of Brunton Street were given bronze from guns captured from the Russians at Sebastopol during the Crimean War. The medal is in the shape of a cross patté, chemically treated to a dark brown finish, showing a lion guardant (standing) over a royal crown surrounded on three sides by a scroll bearing the words "For Valour". On the reverse is a circle with the dates of the act of gallantry engraved in the center with the name, rank and regiment of the recipient. Traditional Roman laurel leaves decorate the suspender bar. The medal was described by The Times of London as "…poor looking and mean in the extreme."
In the early days of the VC the system of awarding the decoration was haphazard at best. Sometimes, instead of awarding the medal to a specific individual a prescribed number of VCs were granted to a unit which had done a gallant deed and a ballot was held to determine who would actually be given the decoration. The officers or men with the most votes won. This system was in use until the end of the First World War and proved effective as the men who nominated the candidates and cast the votes were most likely those best qualified to decide if the recipient qualified for the honour. In time the system became more elaborate and witnesses and documentation became essential before a VC recommendation was forwarded through the chain of command to be eventually approved, or not, by the monarch.
First Awards
Queen Victoria personally awarded the first medals on June 26, 1857 at a gathering in Hyde Park before thousands of spectators. After inspecting her troops, the Queen, still mounted, took up a position near where 62 Victoria Crosses had been laid out on a scarlet draped table. As the name of each recipient was called out they came forward, saluted and the Queen personally pinned the medal to a loop of cord on their tunic. The entire procedure was over in ten minutes and after the march past the Queen returned to Buckingham Palace before noon. She wrote in her diary, "I never saw finer troops, nor better marching…."
Early Canadian VCs
Amongst the sixty-two honoured that day was a young Lieutenant of the 11th Hussars from York, Upper Canada, the first Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross. Alexander Roberts Dunn earned his award on October 25, 1854 following the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava. The first Canadian Naval Victoria Cross, with a blue ribbon, was awarded to William Hall, serving with the Naval Brigade from HMS Shannon during the Indian Mutiny. Hall was, incidentally, also the first Black to receive a VC. The first Canadian Air Force VC was won by Captain William Bishop after an attack on a German airfield in 1917.
Bibliography
Arthur, Max. Symbol of Courage. London; Sidgwick & Jackson, 2004
Bishop, Arthur. Our Bravest and Our Best. Toronto; McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1995
Swettenham, John (ed.). Valiant Men. Toronto; Canadian War Museum, 1973
