The music in my ears was Elgar’s Nimrod and Tallis’ Fantasia theme by Vaughan Williams. The sun was absent, hidden behind a cloudy sky as the giant 15 inch naval guns pointed towards the heavens and I arrived in the gardens of the Imperial War Museum. With a sense of sadness and solemnity I trudged up the steps heading to the fifth floor soon after the museum’s opening on a weekday morning. My destination was the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, and the reason for my dejection was that this was my final visit, for it is to close on 1 June.

The permanent exhibition contains more than 250 Victoria Crosses and George Crosses, granted during Britain’s wars from Crimea via the Indian Mutiny; the Boer War; the Boxer Rebellion and both World Wars continuing to the war in Afghanistan.  It is a hugely powerful room as the stories of these iconic medals are described, in some cases with great detail. Visitors are greeted by a video of various luminaries, but most important among them are Johnson Beharry VC, Margaret Purves GC and Christopher Finney GC.

The Victoria Cross was established on 29 January 1856, with the first presented the next year. It has been awarded on 1,358 occasions to 1,355 recipients. It is inscribed ‘For Valour’, and at its centre is the crown of St. Edward.  The George Cross was introduced on 24 September 1940 and named after George VI, using silver from the Royal Mint. Its inscription is ‘For Gallantry’, and is conferred for acts of heroism when the enemy is not present.

The great Johnson Beharry won his VC, a copy of which sits in the gallery, over two actions at Al-Amarah, Iraq in 2004 – he even gets a comic depicting his exploits that left him with a serious head injury. Purves, who died in 2021, originally received the Albert Medal before it was discontinued and replaced by the George Cross having saved boy scouts from drowning at the age of only fourteen. Finney was presented his GC in 2003 for courage under friendly fire earlier that year, again in Iraq.

Each medal tells a compelling story, and leaves the visitor in awe at the deeds causing its creation, using bronze from Russian guns captured during the Crimean War. Those that stood out to me included a brother officer of my grandfather, Captain Gerald O’Sullivan of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers who, at Gallipoli in July 1915, regained a lost trench from the enemy armed only with ‘jam-tin’ improvised explosives, during which he was injured in an act of bravery which proved inspirational to his comrades. He recovered from his wounds but a month later was killed leading an attack.

Cpt. Noel Chavasse won two, and was the only man to do so during the Great War. A doctor, he saved several men from certain death in No Man’s Land by going out, under constant shell-fire, and returning with wounded. He died from injuries received after his second Victoria Cross award at Passchendaele in 1917. Chavasse, an Olympian who competed at the 1908 games in the 400m, had earlier been given a Military Cross for gallantry in 1915. Only three men have received a Bar to their VC.

There is no triumphalism here; nothing that warrants a jingoistic view of our past, simply a respect and appreciation to those that carried out acts of bravery that need to be remembered. When one reads of the reluctance of our youth today to fight for the country – and who can blame them when they’re told much of Britain’s history is shameful – this room provides some kind of answer.

As I left the words of Christopher Finney GC echoed in my ears: “It would be a terrible shame for people to not be able to appreciate and understand what people have been through.” The IWM says that those VCs and GCs it holds will be ‘integrated within galleries’ and that the exhibition has to go because, ‘Our displays exploring the past 80 years of post-Second World War conflict…are less well represented.’ But if the Victoria Cross and George Cross is not to be the subject of a dedicated gallery here, then where?

Oliver Webb-Carter is the editor of Aspects of History. The Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the IWM London closes 1 June 2025.