Victoria Cross not made of captured Russian guns after all

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The Victoria Cross, or VC as it is popularly known, is the most cherished award in the British armed forces, awarded since 1857 for courage displayed “in the presence of the enemy”.
Its long history is filled with true stories of great bravery. But one long-held belief – that Victoria Cross medals were made from enemy guns captured during the Crimean war against Russia – is unlikely to be true, and originated instead from speculation in the press, according to new research.

Instituted by Queen Victoria, the Victoria Cross is Britain’s highest award for valour in war and has been awarded 1,358 times.

The Queen saw little to celebrate in victory at Sevastopol, and displayed little interest in captured Russian ordnance. Andrew Marriott, a retired lieutenant colonel and visiting researcher at Newcastle University, has concluded that it is “highly implausible” that the medals came from Russian guns after the victory at the siege of Sevastopol in 1855. His research led him to a newspaper report at the time, asserting that they did come from the captured guns. He also found a letter in the Times from a Crimean veteran suggesting the same thing, and so, he says, the myth was born.

Using x-ray fluorescence scans to examine the composition of Victoria Cross medals from 1856 to 2013, the research showed that part-way through the first world war, and again during the second world war, there were noticeable changes in composition, when compared with the 19th-century medals.

“Although we know that Queen Victoria decreed that the new honour be cast from bronze, there is no evidence to suggest that she wanted captured weapons from Sevastopol to be used for this purpose,” Marriott said.
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