THE VICTORIA CROSS AND CAMPAIGN MEDALS AWARDED TO COLONEL JOHN DUNCAN GRANT, 8TH GURKHA RIFLES, HAVE BEEN SOLD AT AUCTION BY MORTON AND EDEN OF LONDON. |
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2 July 2014 |
The Victoria Cross, campaign and commemorative medals, awarded to Colonel John Duncan Grant, 8th Gurkha Rifles, Indian Army, have been sold at auction by the London auction house of Morton and Eden on the 2nd July 2014. The estimated sale price was between £200,000 and £250,000. The VC group realised a sale hammer price of £340,000. The John Grant 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 Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum, London.
For the award of the Victoria Cross [ London Gazette, ], Gyantse Jong, Tibet, 6 July 1904, Lieutenant John Duncan Grant, 1st Bn, 8th Gurkha Rifles, Indian Army.
On the occasion of the storming of the Gyantse Jong on 6th July 1904, the storming Company, headed by Lieutenant Grant, on emerging from the cover of the village, had to advance up a bare, almost precipitous, rock-face, with little or no cover available, and under a heavy fire from the curtain, flanking towers on both sides of the curtain, and other buildings higher up the Jong. Showers of rocks and stones were at the time being hurled down the hillside by the enemy from above. One man could only go up at a time, crawling on hands and knees, to the breach in the curtain.
John Duncan Grant was invested with his Victoria Cross by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on the 24 July 1905.
[ London Gazette, 19 December 1922 ], Created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order ( DSO ), Lieutenant Colonel John Duncan Grant VC, 13th Rajputs, Indian Army
Colonel Grant died on the 20th February 1967, aged 90, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and was cremated in the town's crematorium. |
Iain Stewart, 4 July 2014