St Peter’s College has sold the only double Victoria Cross awarded during World War One for a record fee of almost £1.5 million.
The double VC was bought by Lord Ashcroft. It will be displayed as part of his medal collection in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, due to open in the Imperial War Museum next year.
The Gallery is funded by a £5m donation from the Tory peer. His collection of 160 Victoria Cross medals is worth £30m.
The first Cross was awarded to Captain Noel Chavasse for his heroism in the Battle of the Somme, whilst the second posthumously for his bravery at Ypres where he died in 1917. It is one of only three double VCs to have been awarded since Queen Victoria created the medal in 1856.
The medals were left to St Peter’s, which was founded by Chavasse’s father in 1929.
A college spokesman praised this opportunity for the medals to “be seen by the public in their proper context” with the proceeds going to unspecified “educational purposes”.
