Valuable medals from a Tipperary hero

Medals, including a Victoria Cross, won by a Tipperary soldier in the British Army have sold for £228,000 (€290,000) at auction in London. The Victoria Cross (VC) – Britain's highest military honour – was awarded to Cashel-born Stephen Garvin in 1857 during the Indian Mutiny, a 19th-century rebellion against British rule in India. He was one of the first Irishmen to win the VC and was personally presented with the medal by Queen Victoria.

His group of six medals, which also included a Distinguished Conduct Medal, was sold by an unnamed private collector and went under the hammer on Friday, September 19th, at London medals auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb. Its spokesman Will Bennett said the "tremendously strong price", which was double the estimate, "reflected the fact that Stephen Garvin was one of the great heroes of the Victorian age, a Tipperary man who went half way round the world to win fame and glory." The buyer was an anonymous private collector.

Since its inception in 1856, the Victoria Cross has been awarded only 1,357 times – and only 14 times since the second World War – and is the rarest and most collected of all military honours. It is estimated that a total of 180 soldiers from the island of Ireland have been awarded the medal during the past two centuries.

Donated to museums

Some of the medals were donated to museums but those that appear at auction can fetch very high prices. The highest price paid at auction for a VC was £491,000 but some are believed to have changed hands in private transaction for in excess of £1 million.

The world's biggest collection of VCs – 162 medals estimated to be worth at least £30 million (€38m) – was amassed by billionaire British businessman Lord Ashcroft and is on loan to the Imperial War Museum in London. VC medals are reputedly made from the bronze of a Russian cannon captured at Sevastopol during the Crimean War.