WHERE VICTORIA CROSSES ARE MADE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 163, 7 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHERE VICTORIA CROSSES ARE MADE.

FACTORY SECRETS OF OUR SUPREME AWARD. A\ hat shall we give our supermen — our MikoO'L earys, who capture a position sing'e-handed, braving the roamc blast of dame and bloody horror; our Warnefords, who swoop out of a cloud and send the vast Zeppelin hurtling earthwards to destruction, while his own plane hangs upside-down in d zzv heights? Or our naval Holbrooke, v. l j in weird .Jules Verne craft creep along the sea floor, and, climbing under live lows of floating mines, loose a to pedo at a mighty battleship with fatal tffeet? How shall we requite spirits Ike these ?

We tin it with a bit ot bronz. - , says an English paper, —a modest Cross, the rarest and most democratic decoration in all the world. No jewelled bauble here, but a tiling of small intrinsic worth, bearing no bombastic praise or motto, but just two simple, magic words: "For Valour.As a saleroom relic '!:.e Victoria Cross is highly prized. Now and then a specimen conies up ;:t Christie's famous rooms, together with o'd masters ana miniatures, precious armour inlaid with gold, and Oriental porcelain of truly breathless price.

A SALEROOM DRAMA. A Y.C. will always fetch Loll, and with it goes its pedigree —a thing of lurid' pathos and reckless d.Mvgard of a hundred deaths. Where is he now, the owner of this precious Cross? Dead, perhaps, leaving an old widow, icry poor. And to the good soul {.'oil is a fortune—bitter as tlie parting must bo with n relic so entirely unique.

The most dramatic saleroom scene 1 eve/ remember was at Sotheby's li-:oin<, where a Victoria Cross came up for sal- 1 and was passed from hand to hand with eager, inquisitive expectation. '1 lie bid had passed Clll and iv;:, fa-t approaching "market value,'' when an ( Id soldier tottered in—the winner himself—and in broken tones implored the auctioneer, his staff, and all the dis tmguished collectors present not to proceed with the sale. He'd con.e down in the world, that worn and tearful hero. First sickness, and on top of that a bankrupt provident society. Later on, vain efforts as a street hawker. And then to the pawnshop with his last treasured possess:on—the famous Cross, "For Valour," which is Britain'.- supreme award to her noblest sons. Need 1 say th;.\ the saleroom and its wealthy bidde.s rose to tiie unexpected appeal? The Cross was bought and given back to its winner. Moreover, he left the place with a handsome sum for present need* and the promise of an excellent po.*t besides when his health should be restored.

Now who actua'lv makes the \ i uoria C'ro-s, an:. l wiic'C' The rarest of all distinctions, tli-s "i".ouzo symbol can't be turned o t in 'n.'n'reds. not even by the dozen. Y<-1 ii near it sa :d that tiie V.C'.'s are nude at the Royal Mint, but this is not so. Hut here for •':e first time are set cut th.- factory secrets of this most coveted decoration. All emblems of chivalry are the work ot artist-jewellers —old conservative firms with centuries of experience behind them: tried and trusty servants of the Crown and the Palace.

THE SUPREME AAY ART) FOR HEROISM. When a Star of the Garter —most jealous of all Orders —is needed, the great iious 0 of Garrards' supply it. But the Victoria Cross is made by Hancock's, of Bond Street, that haunt of the most beautiful and precious things that earth holds. The Crimean War found us without any recognised medal for supreme gallantry n the thunderous field. lp to the end that campaign any great and shin.ng act was rewarded with some -peeially struck symbol —which, by tiie way, was a cnn.:e thing, although examples are now so rare as to be keenly sought out by numismatist and collector. But after all the stoic endura l 1 of the Crimea, Queen \ ictorja and lit r svmpathetic Consort rcso'ved np<" a new and sovereign decoration. In fact a simple Cross, to be conferred upmi men of both services for the performance '' Hi the presence of the eneiiiv of some sigr.ai act or heroism and devotion. " Should the winner of it he a poor man. the cross was to carr; a pen-ion of £lO : i Mar and Co extia tor each " oar, which signals yet another wondrous act —jn fact, a double Y.C. like that of Surgeon-Major Martin Leake, who recently gained a bar hesd.es the Cross he won in the Boor War.

And should tho holder of" the now decoration be disabled for life, Irs Cross was to carry a pension up to 01 course the duration of tins was for lite. In tiie a' 1 but unknown case of subsequent misconduct, calling for courtmartu! or other sentence, formal report was to be made to the V* ar Ollae with the view of finding out the Sovereign's pleasure iv; to tho forfeiture or retention ot the Cross.

And so, on t i bright morning in lS5i. tiie Great Queen herself inaugurated tin* supreme Order which bears her name. 11. r famous Majesty mounted a splendid 1 charger in all the panoply of War, wearing scarlet and blue and gold, to the admiration of a mighty throng on the Horse GuarcK Parade.

THE FIRST V.C. WON IX THE BALTIC. Tlk* very first aware, fell to 11 if Xav\. Voting C. I). Lucas (lu l bceanio RearAdmiral) had the blue ribbon pinned upon his tunic by the Queen horsell at the inaugural investiture. A huge live shell foil aboard H.M.S. He'la 111 th< Baltic, and this the youngofficer seized and hurled overboard heiorc the tor ritiod eyes of his men. S'lvo thiw far-oil' e \vs not more than j (it) \ .C. n have been av\aiu*.d and as to its democracy, wo have 11 this war seen it won hy a Poor-L.,w lad, Private Buckingham, of the I.i'icesters, am. I>y a rich young s<|ii;ro hi the Scots Guards, l.K'iitenant BoydRochefort, whoso family butler accompanied hjs master in the trench, i lint liuiiting family, the Gonghs. have three V.C.V, Admiral Sir George Sartorius won it, and so did h's two sons. Reginald and Enston, hoili of them Generals in tlio Army.

Each Cross is specially and separately moulded and made, anil the war <Hlico order to that Bone Street forge ■s "tiie same a- before. ' Ihe Govcrnlnciit sends alone the raw material, wiiich used to he bronze from Russian guns ca'ptured in the Crimea, but ;s now of Chinese orig.n. Xo two \ ictoria Crosses are exactly alike. To obta'n a rough cast, tiie metal .s b.eated in a furnace ot 'J .000 then poured into tnoubl hear:n<; a sand impression from the Prime Consort s own original design. 1 lie new Cross .s now smoothed down, and its main features worked up !l . v t:;n aii.st, wiio take* pains and pri .e with h j« slow and careful work. Later on th» ro;;j;h \ .C. :s passed *o the cha-'er, who mounts it on a ball of pitch, and w.th i.ammer and tcel

heightens the elaborate- ieHcFuntil the details are clear. Alter this sts the Cross goes back to the War till l<ir inspection and further instructio W hen approved it reappears in Be Street, and now the liar is added, n the ribbon—red for the Army and u tor the Navy. Last of all tome the eipieiit's name anc. 1 that of his re IlK'Ht.

The next destination is Buekingii Palace, where the King himself ji the Cross on the hero's breast. J

.Majesty's love for this ceremony is v known. Even when seriously inju and lying prostrate in the darkei hospital train, our King insisted p:nning the Y.C. upon the coat Lance-Sergeant Oliver Brooks, of Coldstreanis —that heroic bomber v snatched from the foe 200 yards trench in as dcadiy a pelting-match even the Great War has ever seen. Brooks, by the way, bears one those "charmed lives" of which < reads in the most extravagant ficti Ho went out with our original Kxp< tionary Force, and has come throi tile whole epic campaign, and all terrible battles, without so much a scratch 1 Contrast this with the who's snick dead by an invisible foe his very first hour of war. A glori hour it may be, as the Y.C. Ann prove. And what weird terrors heroes face—like young Lynn, v braved the yellow cloud of death, nj coughing and strangling, actually no ed his machine-gun on the parapet] < et a better field of fire on the mthl devils for whom the gas had math clear road. Lynn is one of many lo spirits who never lived to wear magic bit of bronze. He died next < of asphyxiation, and when nnrpi quelled his torments lie told dov'oi* >| nurse ''ho was glad ii.e'd had spJ enough to do bis duty." —\\. G. x 1 J^-ujiRAI.D