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Medal entitlement of Corporal William Cosgrove, 1st Bn, Royal Munster Fusiliers
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| THE VICTORIA CROSS AND OTHER CAMPAIGN MEDALS AWARDED TO CORPORAL WILLIAM COSGROVE, ROYAL MUNSTER FUSILIERS, A WWI GALLIPOLI VC, HAS BEEN SOLD AT AUCTION BY DIX NOONAN WEBB IN LONDON. |
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| 25 September 2006 |
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Medal entitlement of Corporal William Cosgrove, 1st Bn, Royal Munster Fusiliers
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| The Victoria Cross and other medals awarded to Corporal William Cosgrove were sold at auction today, 22 September 2006, by the auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb, for a hammer price of £180,000. The VC group was purchased on behalf of the Michael Ashcroft Trust, the holding institution for Lord Ashcroft's VC Collection. |
| William Cosgrove's extraordinary exploit in the face of what almost appeared to be certain death was witnessed by several men, both on shore and aboard the River Clyde. Referring to an 'Irish giant', the ship's sugeon, Burrowes Kelly noted in his diary: 'The manner in which the man worked out in the open will never been forgotten by those who were fortunate to witness it.'
For the award of the Victoria Cross. [ London Gazette, 23 August 1915 ], Gallipoli, Turkey, 26 April 1915, Corporal William Cosgrove, 1st Bn, Royal Munster Fusiliers.
For most conspicuous bravery in the leading of his section with great dash during our attack from the beach to the east of Cape Helles, on the Turkish positions, on 26th April 1915. Corporal Cosgrove on this occasion pulled down the posts of the enemy's high wire entanglements single-handed, notwithstanding a terrific fire from both front and flanks, thereby greatly contributing to the successful clearing of the heights.
William Cosgrove was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace on the 4th November 1916.
In 1934 Staff Sergeant Instructor Cosgrove retired from the Army, but shortly afterwards his health began to fail. It was discovered that splinters of shrapnel, which the surgeons had failed to detect during the operations on his back wound in Malta, were slowly killing him. He died on 14th July 1936 at the comparitively early age of 45 at the Millbank Military Hospital, London, from the wounds caused by machine-gun fire during his VC action in 1915. He was buried in the family plot at Upper Aghada Cemetery, near Cork.
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Iain Stewart, 22 September 2006