A FINE CRIMEAN WAR VICTORIA CROSS BELONGING to the FIRST AUSTRALIAN RESIDENT TO HOLD THE V.C. SELLS FOR A HAMMER PRICE OF £320,000 AT NOONANS

A fine Crimean War Naval Victoria Cross awarded to Australian resident and Seaman James Gorman of H.M.S. Albion, for his gallantry while defending the Right Lancaster Battery at the Battle of Inkermann on November 5, 1864 sold for a hammer price of £320,000 at Noonans Mayfair in their auction of Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria today (Wednesday, December 6, 2023). Bought by a Private collector, it was one of the first V.C’s to be awarded, and was estimated to fetch £200,000-260,000 [lot 220].

Following the sale, Christopher Mellor-Hill, Head of Client Liaison at Noonans commented: “We are very pleased to see this extremely good Victoria Cross go to a new home in a private collection where he will join other former fellow Crimean colleagues. The Naval version of The Victoria Cross is much rarer and at the time had a blue Ribbon rather than the crimson ribbon now associated with all Victoria Cross's.”

Inkermann was one of the bloodiest and most desperate battles in British military history, when in darkness and through deep mist, the Russians launched a sudden and massive attack on the lightly defended British lines. Seaman Gorman declined the order to withdraw and leave the wounded, he proceeded to mount the defence works and, using the weapons of the disabled who he was protecting, helped repel the Russian advance ‘not trusting any Ivan to get in bayonet range of the wounded’ - his award was listed in the notable 24 February 1857 issue of the London Gazette containing the first ever awards of the Victoria Cross and his well documented later life confirms him to have been the first Australian resident to hold the V.C. This was one of three V.C’s awarded for this action – the other two are both held in the Lord Ashcroft Collection at the Imperial War Museum in London. 

James Gorman was born in London in 1834, he was assigned at the age of 14 to the training ship H.M.S. Victory, Admiral Nelson’s former flagship, as a Boy Second Class, having been one of the first 200 boys to be accepted as apprentices into the Royal Navy. Later on in his Naval career, he saw service on the newly formed Australia Station, docking at Sydney on December 31, 1858 and January 1860 and also at Melbourne in March 1859. Returning to England, he was paid off at Sheerness in 1860, thus ending his 13 years of service in the Royal Navy, but chose to return to the antipodes, boarding the 755 ton free trader Fairlie at Plymouth, bound for Sydney, Australia, in 1863 – he remained in Australia for the rest of his life and was buried with military honours in the Church of England section of Balmain Cemetery (now Pioneers memorial Park, Leichhardt) in October 1882.

Elsewhere in the sale the historically important campaign group of three awarded to Lieutenant V. Hughes of the 35th Sikhs, Indian Army, who was killed in action at Shahi-Tang, high in the Mamund Valley, on 16 September 1897 while leading a rear-guard action to prevent the dangerously exposed Winston Churchill from being overrun and killed by the Pathan tribesmen sold for the hammer price of £10,000 to a private collector from the Midlands [lot 310].

Mr Mellor-Hill noted: “This is an iconic medal group connected with Churchill in action on the NW Frontier and reflects on how close Churchill came to losing his life in this action where his fellow officer, Hughes was so savagely killed in front of him despite Churchill’s brave attempts to avenge his death.”