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December 2003 Medal Newsletter
30 April 2004 Auction • Sutlej Medal 1845-46 for Sobraon 1846 (Capt. W:E: Baker
Engineers) (later General Sir William K.C.B.)
Among the other properties consigned to the sale is a superb D.S.O. for Chitral, in an interesting group of eight to Lieutenant Colonel Henry Kellett Harley (1868-1919). Lieutenant Harley had transferred from the Royal Dublin Fusiliers to the Indian Staff Corps in June 1892. The end of 1894 found him at Gilgit with a detachment of 14th Sikhs. Here he met up with the British Agent Sir George Robertson, who noted that Lieutenant Harley was ‘the only officer then across the Shandur Pass.’ At this stage the Agent was not unduly concerned, observing ‘there was seemingly a prospect of continued peace all along the Kashmir frontier.’ Three months later both Robertson and Harley would be in Chitral, and the Fort with its garrison of a little over 500 men would be under siege. Harley played a vital role in defending the fort. On 17 April, after six weeks of siege and with a relief column under Lieutenant Colonel J G Kelly just two days march away, the Chitralis attempted to mine the gun tower of the fort in a last desperate bid to gain access before the relief column arrived. As the tunnel neared the wall of the fort the defenders detected the ominous sound, ‘the muffled vibrating thud of a pick, with an occasional high-pitched ring as iron struck stone.’ The tunnellers were no more than a few feet from their objective, and there was no time to counter-mine. A sortie was the only solution. Immediately a force of 100 men, 40 Sikhs and 60 Kashmir rifles, was assembled. Lieutenant Harley was to lead this ‘forlorn hope’. Their objective was twofold, firstly the capture of the well defended summer-house which the Pathans and Chitralis had occupied and from which they were now tunnelling, and secondly the destruction of the tunnel by means of two homemade bombs, two large bags of gunpowder, with canvas tubes, also filled with gunpowder, as fuses. Harley had made these ‘bombs’ himself some time previously, thinking that they might be useful at some stage during the siege. At 4 o’clock that afternoon the garden door was swung open and the summer-house was stormed. In the words of the Agent Robinson, a small group from the sortie party, led by Harley, ‘made a collective tiger-spring for the summer-house, followed by the rest of the soldiers.’ They took the objective at the point of the bayonet, but now a ferocious fire fight developed. Robinson was watching from the walls. ‘Like a thunder cloud bursting over the fort was the violent outbreak of musketry, and from all sides fighting men were seen running up, bent double, to reinforce the sangars. In the firm belief that this was the despairing effort of famine-stricken wretches to cut their way out, the exulting enemy pressed forward to the fight.’ The defenders on the walls returned fire. Meanwhile, having cleared the summer-house of its Pathan defenders, Harley set about clearing the tunnel of Chitralis. The Sikhs, with drawn kookris, eagerly jumped into the mouth of the tunnel, and one by one the unfortunate Chitrali miners were dragged up and, though some emerged with swords at the ready, they were all overpowered. Harley positioned his two bombs and began to lay the fuses. At the last minute two more Chitralis rushed from the tunnel, trampling the fuses as they passed. Harley had carried a spare length of fuse with him. From the walls Robinson watched in horror. ‘As he was about to jump down again with it into the shaft, a violent explosion occurred, knocking him down and burning the turbans of the Sepoys.’ The home-made ‘bombs’ had prematurely exploded. Robinson vividly describes the chaotic scenes that followed. ‘I saw an enormous puff of smoke rise abruptly, like a beautiful white balloon, and Harley’s men race back in two parties, their leader, last of all, bringing with him one of the prisoners. An extraordinary rifle-fire blazed about them as they dashed across the twenty yards of open space, but no one was touched; the garden gate was banged to and quickly re-barricaded. One glance showed me the never-to-be-forgotten horror of the summer-house shambles, then I ran down to congratulate Harley and praise his men.’ For a moment there was some doubt that the ‘bombs’ had done the job, but soon the watchers on the tower observed what appeared to be a trench which reached nearly to the wall. ‘We were reprieved. Harley’s gunpowder had done its work after all. The frail roof of the tunnel, unsupported by beams- the mine was, in fact, a mere burrow- had slowly sunk down in great masses.’ Two days later, on Friday 19 April, the relief column arrived, the Pathan
army melted away, and the siege was lifted. Harley’s D.S.O. was
gazetted 16 July 1895. The terse understatement of the citation is typical
of the period, ‘in recognition of services during the recent operations
in Chitral’. For further information, or if you are interested in consigning orders,decorations and medals to our April 2004 auction, please contact John Hayward (020 7563 4049) or Richard Bishop (0207 563 4053). Click
here to view the prices realised for the 5 November Auction After two years at the Royal Mint, John decided to convert his hobby
into a business. He had already begun in a small way along the Portobello
Road, but now decided to devote himself full-time to this activity and
quickly No 17 Piccadilly was in an ideal position, situated not far from the main coin and medal dealers and auctioneers, such as Glendining, Sotheby and Spink. Among the many stories John recounted about his early years in business, is that of the occasion when a major dealer offered him the VC group to the Irish Guards hero John Kenneally. Second World War VCs were rare on the market at that time and the only way to secure the item was for John to dispose of half his DSO collection. With the promise that the VC would be held for him, John managed to complete the disposal within a fortnight, only to find that the promised group had been sold in the interim. He recalls that this crushing blow provided him with an even greater incentive to take on the competition. During our conversation, John often contributed some interesting asides
to our VC theme. He recalled that in his early years medals, usually from
the Great War, were often to be found in pawnbrokers. Most old soldiers
wore their medals on their waistcoats and often pawned them still attached.
This got us talking about how some heroes - officers and other ranks -
fell on hard times. This was the case with Major Raymond Willis, known
as 'Walking Stick' Willis, who rose to command his regiment. The Depression
of the 1930s, in particular, hit many veterans, including Willis, who
was reduced to selling matches on the streets of Manchester. Like many
others in his situation he was forced to sell his VC. Later a replacement
was claimed on the grounds that his original was 'irretrievably lost'.
The original did come into John's possession at one stage. Since then
it has passed through several hands and was auctioned not so long ago
for £75,000, and is now on display at the Imperial War Museum (north).
(See The Journal of the VC John produced his first medal catalogue in October 1966. By the standard of other sales lists of that period, The Gazette as it was called, was pretty revolutionary, as not only did it list the numismatic details of the awards on offer, but also included biographical and service details of the medal recipients. Although we now take for granted this depth of information, it was not always so, it was not even particularly unusual at the time for medals to be advertised without even the recipient's name or unit. Increasingly, collectors wanted the story behind the medal and the established firms were obliged to follow Hayward's example. John began to advertise for medals in national newspapers and this brought
in a steady supply. He was helped, albeit inadvertently, by the fact that
his competitors were not greatly interested in the more modern awards.
This rather hidebound attitude and emphasis on Napoleonic period awards
and Victorian campaign medals left a relatively clear field for John to
acquire, for example, Distinguished Conduct Medals, Military Medals and
other scarcer twentieth century pieces which he saw, as it turned our
correctly, as having great market potential. His acquisition of such items
was often spoken of patronisingly by established circles as 'Hayward's
speciality'. Additionally he was also able to acquire many of the fine
classic items much prized by In response to his three-quarter page advertisements in the national press John tells of the occasion a dignified gentlemen came into the shop with a large bag full of foreign orders. He had been very well connected and had worked with the Royal Family and with Sir Winston Churchill. In the course of his duties, he had, as a matter of protocol, been awarded a decoration by each country he had visited in his official capacity, but had found little opportunity to wear them. Hence he had decided 'to thin them out'! On the subject of Victoria Crosses, the very first The Gazette (1966)
contained as its main item the Zulu War Cross pair to Private Thomas Flawn,
94 Regiment, which was offered at £865. To illustrate the comparative January 1967 Lord Gifford Ashanti War £1000 (this had turned up
in the drawer of a desk sold at auction 'with There followed a fallow year before The Gazette offered its next VC, that to Lieutenant Henry Lysons of Zulu War fame. Six months later the exceptional Indian Mutiny VC/DCM group to Colour Sergeant S. Garvin, 60th Rifles was offered for £1500, a very high price at that time. As the demand for VCs gathered momentum, so invariably prices rose. This is illustrated by a glance at copies of The Gazette during the early 1970s: August 1971 Joseph Kellaway Crimea, Royal Navy £2100 An exceptional pair of Light Brigade Charger VCs soon followed: June 1972 Sergeant Joseph Malone Crimea £2600 The difference in price between these two Crimea VCs is accounted for
by the fact that Berryman also served in the Zulu War 1877-79. The benchmark
price for VCs during the following year remained around the £2000
mark. The VC to Lieutenant Thomas Orde Lauder Wilkinson, killed at La
Boiselle on the fifth day of the Battle of the Somme , sold through The
Gazette for £2,200. In relation to this sale, John made the interesting The same year was memorable for another more sinister reason. A petrol bomb was pushed through the letterbox of 17 Piccadilly. Fortunately it was dealt with before the damage became considerable. The culprit was never found, although John does have his own private theories. The last Victoria Cross to be offered through The Gazette was in October 1974, when the Gallipoli VC group to Sergeant W. Cosgrove brought £3300. Gradually VCs became thinner on the ground and those that did surface were more usually sold privately to regiments and museums. There were some regular private collectors, perhaps the most significant of whom was Jack Stenabaugh of Canada, who had over 20 VCs at one time. By this time John himself had a collection of 19 Victoria Crosses, but did not keep them for too long. One day he was reading the letters sent by the mother of a posthumous VC winner, killed on the first day of the Somme when he was overtaken a strange sensation. 'It didn't feel right' John explained, and he experienced an overwhelming conviction that the medals should not belong to him but to those closer to the recipient. Within a short time, John sold his entire VC collection and never again sought to own another. The 1970s was a very interesting decade for medal collecting. At Sotheby Michael Naxton was developing the VC market through the auction house. John, in tandem with his medal dealing, was reprinting a stream of unobtainable standard reference works essential for medal research as well as producingsome new titles. Long out-of-print classics like Mackinnon and Shadbolt's Afghan War 1878-79 and The South Africa Campaign of 1879 made a welcome reappearance, as did O'Moore Creagh and Humphris' The Victoria Cross 1856-1920. One original Hayward publication in my collection that has become a well-thumbed over he past 30 years is Honour the Light Brigade by Cannon William Lummis and Kenneth Wynn. In June 1979, John closed 17 Piccadilly Arcade and took a sabbatical
from medal dealing for a couple of years. In 1982 he was tempted back
to the mainstream by an approach from Christie's, the auctioneers, who
sold orders, decorations and medals on the back of their coin auctions,
and therefore were very much in second place to Sotheby. Christie's numismatic
auctions were ripe for development, hence with John on board as Consultant,
the first medal-only catalogues were produced as the number and quality
of lots I then asked John about the background to some of the more famous Victoria
Cross sales and he began with the strange tale of John Chard and his VC.
Lieutenant John Chard, Royal Engineers commanded the beleaguered garrison
at Rorke's Drift against an overwhelming force of Zulus on 22 January
1879. In The actor Stanley Baker, who played Chard in the film, successfully bid for the medal at £2700 with John Hayward as underbidder. At the time John thought this was a hell of a price to pay for a Zulu War medal, even to Chard. On Baker's death a few years afterwards, his widow sold the pair, after which it changed hands several times before being lodged at Spink for safe-keeping. Here it was decided to get the metal tested scientifically to remove any element of human error. The Cross was sent to the Royal Armouries where it was subjected to spectroscopic analysis to determine its metallic characteristics, thus establishing a sort of metallurgical DNA. The tests revealed that this so-called 'cast copy' had a similar metal content to other authentic Victoria Crosses of that particular period. Despite this confirmation of it being genuine, Chard's VC would inevitably attract careful scrutiny if it were ever to be offered for sale due to its fascinating history. However, it would perhaps not be going too far to say that arguably this most famous VC is now priceless. John confided that he believes he can tell a 'genuine' VC by its appearance and feel. He commented that during the casting of a Cross, the medal might emerge from the die in a condition which only required a little extra work. Others might not be so crisp and needed much cleaning and chasing to bring them to the required standard. John said that he had seen three Afghan War 1878-80 VCs which would have benefited from being finished in a more diligent fashion. Interestingly these were cast about the same time as Chard's VC. I then asked John about the famous VC to William Speakman sold at auction in 1982 when John purchased it for £20,000. On examining the Cross, he noticed that Speakman had added a faintly scratched 'Hill 317' - the feature he had so gallantly defended in Korea. The group eventually found its way to the Scottish United Services Museum through the generosity of Jack Stenabaugh, where it is on display today. John stated that as the number of Victoria Crosses reaching the market dwindles, most are now sold by private treaty. The reasons for this include that families would prefer to avoid publicity and may wish to have more control over the sale. A recent sale saw the proceeds going towards the establishment of a scholarship fund'. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Victoria Cross Society. Email: secretary@victoriacrosssociety.com)
Catalogues Spink Representatives Out and About Our representative in Australasia is Mike Downey who can be contacted
at:
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