Jersey Victoria Cross Could Be Coming Home

A Victoria Cross awarded in 1863 to an Old Victorian is likely to be bought by the Société Jersiaise in support of the national ‘Help for Heroes’ campaign.

Lieutenant Henry Pitcher, who was one of the early pupils at Victoria College in the 1850s, joined the Indian Army, and gained his VC in 1863 in the Umbeyla Campaign on the North-West Frontier. His great granddaughter Anne Allen-Stevens, who lives in the UK, now wants to sell the medal to support a campaign which raises money to help service personnel injured while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The medal has been valued by Spink’s as being worth between £80,000 and £100,000. Mrs Stevens was due to have it auctioned in April. However, following representations of the Société, she has withdrawn it from the auction, and instead agreed to sell it to the Société if the sum of £90,000 can be raised, money which she will donate to the Help for Heroes charity, which is backed by the Army Benevolent Fund. 

By Alasdair Crosby.
Article © 8/1/2008 Guiton Group.