THE VICTORIA CROSS AND CAMPAIGN MEDALS AWARDED TO GENERAL GEORGE CHANNER, 1st GOORKHA REGIMENT ( BENGAL STAFF CORPS ), HAVE BEEN SOLD AT AUCTION BY DIX NOONAN WEBB.
22 July 2016


( select to enlarge )
Medal entitlement of General George Channer,
1st Goorkha Regiment ( Bengal Staff Corps )

  • Victoria Cross
  • Companion, Order of the Bath ( CB )
  • India General Service Medal ( 1854-1895 )
    • 4 clasps:
    • "Umbeyla" - "Perak 1875-6"
    • "Jowaki 1877-8" - "Hazara 1888"
  • Afghanistan Medal ( 1878-80 )
    • 1 clasp:
    • "Peiwar Kotal"


The Victoria Cross and campaign medals awarded to General George Channer, 1st Goorkha Regiment ( Bengal Staff Corps ) have been sold at auction by Dix Noonan Webb on the 22nd July 2016.

The estimated sale price was between £180,000 and £220,000. The sale hammer price realised £200,000.

The George Channer Victoria Cross group was purchased by the Michael Ashcroft Trust, the holding institution for the Lord Ashcroft VC Collection, and will go on display in the Imperial War Museum's Lord Ashcroft Gallery.


For the award of the Victoria Cross

[ London Gazette, 14 April 1876 ], Perak, Malaya, 20 December 1875, Captain ( now Brevet Major ) George Nicholas Channer, 1st Goorkha Regiment ( Bengal Staff Corps).

For having, with the greatest gallantry, been the first to jump into the Enemy’s Stockade, to which he had been dispatched with a small party of the 1st Goorkha Light Infantry, on the afternoon of the 20th December 1875, by the Officer Commanding the Malacca Column, to procure intelligence as to its strength and position.

Major Channer got completely in the rear of the Enemy’s position, and finding himself so close that he could hear the voices of the men inside, who were cooking at the time, and keeping no look out, he beckoned to his men, and the whole party stole quietly forward to within a few paces of the Stockade. On jumping in, he shot the first man dead with his revolver, and his party then came up, and entered the Stockade, which was of a most formidable nature, surrounded by a bamboo palisade; about seven yards within was a log-house, loop-holed, with two narrow entrances, and trees laid latitudinally, to the thickness of two feet.

The Officer commanding reports that if Major Channer, by his foresight, coolness, and intrepidity, had not taken this Stockade, a great loss of life must have occurred, as from the fact of his being unable to bring guns to bear on it, from the steepness of the hill, and the density of the jungle, it must have been taken at the point of the bayonet.

George Channer was invested with his Victoria Cross in India in 1876, where and by whom is not known.


General George Channer died in Westward Ho! on the 13th December 1905 and was buried in East-the-Water Cemetery, Bideford, Devonshire.

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Iain Stewart, 22 July 2016