Victoria Cross awarded to Scottish war hero set to fetch £260,000 at auction

A series of rare naval medals including the first naval Victoria Cross of World War One that was given to a Scottish captain are going up for sale.

Noonans Mayfair will sell a collection of 250 historic medals at an auction this month, which together are expected to fetch up to £2 million. The Victoria Cross is set to earn up to £260,000 by itself.

The one-of-a-kind medal was given to Captain Henry Peel Ritchie of the Royal Navy as the Senior Service’s first Victoria Cross of the war. Ritchie lived at Craig Royston House in Edinburgh and died there on 9 December 1958, aged 83.

He earned the medal for his brave command of the H.M.S. Goliath’s steam pinnace at Dar-es-Salaam in East Africa on November 28, 1914. Ritchie was promoted Captain on the Retired List in January 1924.

Deputy chairman of Noonans and director of the Medal Department Nimrod Dix commented: “When the pinnace came under a withering fire, 38-year-old Ritchie took over the wheel from his wounded coxswain and steered for the harbour’s entrance, but it took 20 minutes to get clear, in which period he was wounded eight times — on the forehead, in the left hand, twice in the left arm, in his right arm and hip and, finally, by two bullets through his right leg.”

Other noteworthy artefacts in the collection, which spans more than 200 years, include a World War Two bomb and a mine disposal George Cross. Elsewhere, a Distinguished Service Cross group of ten awarded to Lieutenant-Commander William Ewart Hiscock, Royal Navy, will also go under the hammer and is expected to fetch up to £120,000.

Dix added: “In his capacity as Controlled Mining Officer at H.M.S. St. Angelo, Malta, Hiscock dealt with no fewer than 125 ‘incidents’ at the height of the island’s siege, among them an ‘Italian torpedo machine’ and other unknown types of ordnance: in dismantling the former, which contained a 650lb. high explosive charge fitted with four firing devices and a time fuse, the clock mechanism whirred into action, but he calmly neutralised the device nonetheless.

“Tragically, he and his wife were killed in a bombing raid on Valetta in February 1942, just a few days after the announcement of his award of the G.C., so it was presented to one of his daughters by King George VI at Buckingham Palace on 23 June 1942.”

The naval objects are set to be sold at auction at 2pm on July 23. The extensive lineup of artefacts comes from the collection of the late Jason Pilalas from Connecticut, USA, who was an officer in the United States Navy.

Dix continued: “He was not only a man of many talents, but he was also a man of many interests, none more so than his relentless pursuit of knowledge of all things relating to the Royal Navy. This voracious appetite for knowledge being matched only by his seemingly unquenchable thirst to collect objects relating to his passion.

“However, as much as Jason cherished his collection, he was always mindful of the fact that he was just the custodian of these objects in his own lifetime.”

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