Talk:Victoria Cross

Victoria Cross recipients (part 2)
Another VC list? Please separate British VC and VCfA awards - the VCfA was named in honour of the British VC but is a unique award of the Australian Honours System and should be separate to British VC awards. Anthony Staunton (talk) 00:58, 25 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The above wikitable listing is just for this talk page only with no intention of article inclusion anywhere, only archived history. Best, --Discographer (talk) 16:42, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Alleged equality with the George Cross
I will be removing this claim from various articles. The "reference" provided, Letter from the Cabinet Office, Honours and Appointments Secretariat, dated 17 September 2020, is not a published reference. The only trace I can find of the text within it is in the Wikipedia articles it has been added to as a "reference". Should this claim have been made in reliable, published, references I have no objection to its restoration, but there is currently zero evidence the "reference" provided meets WP:V. FDW777 (talk) 18:20, 25 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The most interesting footnote I have seen in a long time. Where did it come from. I saw some newspaper reports which could be used as a reference but I would love to see the full letter. I laughed at the last sentence 'The George Cross is, however, sequenced in the Order of Wear after the Victoria Cross to acknowledge the historic seniority of the Victoria Cross and for the practical reason that two medals cannot easily be worn". Firstly because it contradicts the equality of the awards and second because every Anzac Day I see many veterans who have only been awarded campaign and service medals manage to wear multiple medals quite easily. My view has always been that both awards have equal prestige but that the VC is senior to the GC. Frankly, with no civilian GC awards for gallantry in the UK since 1976, 44 years ago, and with the last four civilian GC awards overseas, the GC is defunct for civilian gallantry in the UK and is now only for the Military or the occasional UK civilian overseas. Anthony Staunton (talk) 07:24, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * To be fair you did leave out the last two words of the sentence which were "joint first", details about the Order of Wear can be found in The Gazette or page 27 of the Army Dress Regulations. I did look for references but as of last night but could only find two tabloid newspapers talking about a social media post by Elizabeth Windsor not the 17 September letter, both of which were listed as unreliable at Reliable sources/Perennial sources. FDW777 (talk) 08:05, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Is this a safe source? The Banner  talk 10:41, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * No. Scroll down to the "Sources" at the bottom. Some of the material on this page was also partially derived from  FDW777 (talk) 10:43, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sugar, did not see that. The Banner  talk 11:30, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

I will list the unreliable tabloid references, so people can see there is potential for change in the coming days. The Scum use a headline of Queen confirms the George Cross IS on a par with the Victoria Cross – ending years of speculation, which is followed up by the article itself claiming A formal statement due tomorrow will end decades of speculation about the order of the gongs (the original article is timestamped 23 Sep 2020, 22:25, so "tomorrow" appears to have been postponed). The Express claims the Royal Family posted on Instagram: "The George Cross is the equivalent of the Victoria Cross, which rewards actors of bravery on military operations." Curiously I can find no evidence they did post any such thing on Instagram (unless it was posted as a "story" which disappears after 24 hours, which would seem somewhat unusual for an important statement), their George Cross image can be seen here and does not appear to contain the claim the Express attribute to them.

So while it does appear they may be some official announcement in the pipeline (if you believe The Scum) it hasn't happened yet. FDW777 (talk) 15:42, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The IP editor at George Cross claims "This has been proved with a UK authoritative letter from the Honours secretariat". Nothing has been "proved" at all, since there is no evidence this "authoritative letter" exists other than someone mentioning it in a footnote. FDW777 (talk) 20:48, 26 September 2020 (UTC)


 * FDW777 I apologize for mocking 'joint award' a concept which escapes me. I was not mocking the decision, if it has been made, after 80 years to make them equal or equivalent awards. I was mocking the wording of the possible announcement. Australia in its Order of Wear specifically states that the VCfA and the VC are equivalent awards. If the MOD was serious, all they had to do was to look at the notes in the British Order of Wear for Order of Chivalry. ‘Those individuals who hold both Military and Civil Division Awards in the same Order of Chivalry wear both pieces of Insignia and if at the same level the first awarded is worn first’. It is academic since how likely is someone in the future to be awarded both the senior and junior highest awards. However, my interpretation of the statement is that today in the UK, both the VC and GC are of equal prestige and that the VC is the senior award. Anthony Staunton (talk) 05:58, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't mind mocking, I just didn't realise it was as I thought you'd misread the claimed content of the letter. There's certainly room for debate about if they are equal or not, but I believe we jumped the gun several days ago using the apparently unpublished letter as a reference, especially since the public clarification from Elizabeth Windsor has yet to appear. FDW777 (talk) 07:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The content of the unconfirmed reference seems to have it each way. The VC & GC Association gets what it wanted to hear but the VC is senior and is worn first. Anthony Staunton (talk) 02:39, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Another round of where the metal comes from
The article currently asserts that "The barrels of the Chinese cannon are on display in the Artillery Hall of The Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson, Hampshire." It also makes various other assertions that the medals were produced from Chinese cannons. However in 2020 Andrew Marriot published a couple of papers throwing XRF at the problem. One of them is [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00794236.2020.1750150 Manufactured tradition? – the Victoria Cross] which I don't have full access to but Investigating the origin and authenticity of Victoria Cross medals using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry published in nature is open access. It states "Cannon held at Woolwich, often referred to as the “VC guns”, are widely thought to be the source of many issued VCs, though which and how many is not known. Comparison of the composition of these guns to this large set of medals highlights that they are in fact not a close match to any of the VCs nor the sets of metal blocks held by the UK Ministry of Defence at Donnington and by Hancocks." The paper notes that cannon can vary in composition along their length but seems pretty sceptical of this possibility. It also doesn't find evidence for any matches with Chinese cannon. I can't access the sources claiming there is a link but they all predate this paper.©Geni (talk) 15:17, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Legacy section, subsection "Memorials" - suggested improving addition
There is an apparent omission in the subsection the addition of which would be an improvement in this Featured Article. During the years of the centenary anniversaries of the First World War (2014 to 2018) commemorative stones to VC recipients of the war were presented to and unveiled at the recipients' home towns. I have lost memory how that was organised, did a government department pay for them? Did it apply only within the UK? I know for example Oswestry in Shropshire received one, placed in Cae Glas Park, in honour of Harold Whitfield in 2018.Cloptonson (talk) 17:50, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Because of its rarity, the VC is highly prized ...
I am dropping ‘Because of its rarity’ and will start the second paragraph with ‘the VC is highly prized’. It is not rare compared to many medals including the George Cross, the four Albert Medals and the Conspicuous Gallantry Medals to name a few. The prestige of the VC has always been high and with so many now in public institutions, the number available for sale or auction is decreasing. Anthony Staunton (talk) 07:36, 2 May 2023 (UTC)