Mystery of the rare VC medal found in the Thames
HOW did a rare Victoria Cross - the British military’s highest award for valour - end up in the river Thames? The medal in question has recently gone on show at the Museum of London (Nov 2016) and was found by a property developer armed with a metal detector in the mud and gravel of the foreshore.
Tobias Neto told the London Evening Standard of his find, at an undisclosed location: “I’ve been detecting on the foreshore for almost two years now and do it a few times a week, depending on my schedule and the tides.
“I came across what looked at first like a large brooch or medal covered in mud. I kept it and carried on detecting and it was only when I got home that I realised I had a VC medal in my hands because I could read ‘For Valour’ written below the crown.”
The website victoriacross.org.uk explains the history of the Victoria Cross. It was born in 1856 following the carnage of the Crimean War, after it was recognised that a new honour for bravery was needed that was open to all ranks, and not just senior officers. The French, Britain’s allies in the Crimea, already had the Legion d'Honneur, introduced by Napoleon in 1803.
Queen Victoria supported the idea and she selected a design modelled on the Army Gold Cross from the Peninsular War. Today, collectors can pay six-figure sums for a VC in the auction room with one fetching £1.5 million.
Mr Neto’s medal, dated on the reverse November 5, 1854, was one of 16 VCs awarded after a major battle on that date during the Crimean War.
Two are listed as lost, enabling experts at the Museum of London to narrow down its recipient to one of two men - Private John McDermond of the 47th (Lancashire) Regiment and Private John Byrne of the 68th (Durham Light Infantry). They were both recognised for their bravery at Inkerman.
Mr Neto said he had a “gut feeling” that the medal he found belonged to Byrne because of an old family story that the veteran struggled to settle into civilian life.
The website of the Durham Light Infantry Association (South Shields) tells the story of Byrne, born in Castlecomer, Kilkenny, in 1832. On enlistment at Coventry in July 1850 he was two months shy of his 18th birthday. It states that: “Byrne was not the ideal soldier, even by the standards of the 1850s, and in November 1853 he was sent to prison, for an unknown crime.
“In August 1854, the 68th (Durham) Light Infantry set sail for the Crimea and Private Byrne was released from his cell to join his regiment. Within three months, he was at Inkerman rescuing a wounded soldier - the first act for which he would be awarded the Victoria Cross.”
The DLI website describes the confusion amid the swirling fog of the Battle of Inkerman, outside the Russian naval base of Sebastopol.
“Caught up in that turmoil were 200 men of the 68th (Durham) Light Infantry, fighting for their lives. Charging downhill, they drove back three Russian battalions. Then the 68th was attacked. With their ammunition gone, the soldiers were forced to retreat and leave their wounded behind. As they fell back and the Russians advanced firing, Private John Byrne turned and ran back towards the enemy to rescue a badly wounded soldier, Anthony Harman. Probably for the first time in his life - he was just 22 - John Byrne had done something for which he would not get into trouble.”
The second act of bravery for which Byrne was awarded the Victoria Cross was on a stormy night on May 11,1855. “Byrne was again involved in a savage fight when, a large Russian force left Sebastopol and attacked the trenches near the Woronzoff Road, held by just two companies of the 68th.
“The attack was eventually driven off but only after the most fierce hand-to-hand fighting. In one contest, Byrne struggled in the dark and driving rain with a Russian soldier on the parapet of the trench, before bayoneting him and capturing his musket - "an example of bravery the consequence of which was the speedy repulse of the sortie".
On 24th February 1857, the first list of names for the Victoria Cross appeared in the London Gazette. It listed Private John Byrne, 68h Light Infantry.
Byrne went on to fight the Maoris in New Zealand, winning the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and in 1866 he was promoted to sergeant. He took his discharge, aged 40, at Cork in 1872 after 21 years’ service.
But without the support of the 68th he was soon in difficulty, says the DLI website. “He joined the 2nd North Durham Militia as a Colour Sergeant but was discharged within a few months for “insubordination and highly improper conduct” - no doubt drink was the cause of his downfall.”
The DLI website says he does not reappear in the records until 1878, when he began work as a labourer with the Ordnance Survey in South Wales.
“On 10th July 1879 at Newport, John Byrne accused a fellow workman, John Watts, of insulting the Victoria Cross. In the argument that followed, he shot Watts, who was about 19, with a small revolver, hitting him in the shoulder. When the police went round to his lodgings at Maindee, Byrne VC placed the barrel of the revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was 46.”
An inquest heard he had lost all his possessions in a fire at Cork. But it’s a mystery how his VC, if indeed it is his, ended up in the Thames. Could it have been tossed in the river in a drunken rage at the difficulties of settling and making a living after service, a problem that still resounds today?
Byrne lay in an unmarked grave at St Woolos cemetery in Newport until November 1985 when he was finally honoured with a headstone.
Returning to Mr Neto, he told how he visited the grave: “I decided to visit his headstone at St Woolos cemetery in Newport. He’s been my number one suspect from day one, and that was the main reason of my visit. I’ve always thought the medal belonged to him.”
Mr Neto, whose Thames finds include Roman coins, reported the discovery of the VC to Museum of London, which has put it on show until December 15, 2016.
http://www.dlisouthshields.org.uk/
http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/
