Victoria Crosses to Gather Dust

In a sign of the times, the Imperial War Museum has announced that it is closing the gallery devoted to Lord Ashcroft’s personal collection of Victoria and George Cross medals. They were displayed so that anyone could see them and read the stories of astonishing bravery involved. The scandalous decision was made without even bothering to tell Lord Ashcroft.

The Telegraph has the story:

The billionaire businessman said the museum “had not even the courtesy” to inform him before the public announcement on Tuesday of its decision to close down the landmark gallery displaying his £70 million collection of 230 Victoria Cross and George Cross medals.

The Lord Ashcroft Gallery was opened in 2010 following a £5 million donation from the life peer and the medals were loaned out for 15 years.

However, the museum has since announced that the gallery will permanently close on June 1st and the entire collection will be returned to Lord Ashcroft.

According to the IWM they need the space for other exhibits:

In a statement, the museum said its own, far smaller, collection of Victoria and George Cross medals would be “displayed across our UK branches [and] integrated within galleries that tell the full story of the conflicts in which these acts of bravery occurred”.

The display is being closed to make way for new exhibits exploring post-Second World War conflicts, including the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. The museum added that these wars were less represented.

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman is unconvinced, saying:

This needs to be reversed and is a great shame. The IWM must ensure that it isn’t taking the knee to woke politics. Our brave soldiers’ sacrifice shouldn’t be left to gather cobwebs in a vault.

Lord Ashcroft wrote in another piece for the Telegraph about his sadness at the decision, which he only learned about while travelling in Ukraine speaking to soldiers:

It is my 11th visit to the war-torn country including several visits to the frontline. Championing bravery has played a major part in my life for the past 40 years. Sadly, the closure of the gallery on June 1st marks the end, for now at least, of arguably my greatest achievement in this area.

Since 1986 I have – patiently and sensitively – devoted significant resources and time to building up a collection of Victoria Crosses (VCs), by some way the largest in the world, so that these stories of incredible gallantry could be enjoyed by visitors to London. For the past 15 years these decorations have been on public display in a free exhibition.

It was with a heavy heart that I broke off my interviews with some of the bravest men on the planet to read the statement from the IWM, about which they had not even had the courtesy to inform me. The Chairman of the trustees, Sir Guy Weston, never spoke to me about it. Should I not have been the first to know?

HRH The Duke of Kent, President of the Museum, and High Commissioners from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka plus two senior military figures are amongst the serving trustees. They were presumably involved in the decision. Did none of them ask whether I had been informed?

The Lord Ashcroft Gallery was opened by HRH The Princess Royal in 2010 and has displayed my collection of some 230 VCs and George Crosses (GCs), along with a number of VCs and GCs either owned by or loaned to the IWM. I not only agreed to loan my collection but I also paid more than £5 million to create a spacious gallery for the medals and associated memorabilia. Now, my sincere hope is that those who have not visited the gallery so far will do so over the next three months before it is too late. I would love nothing better than the gallery to go out on a ‘high’ in terms of visitor numbers.

I have had a passion for the concept of bravery since I was a small boy and was told by my father, Eric, about his experiences as a young officer taking part in the D-Day landings of June 6th 1944. My father was wounded during the landings on Sword Beach but fought on until ordered from the battlefield for treatment. My fascination with valour transformed itself over time into an interest in gallantry medals which are a tangible memento of service and courage.

God willing, I will be 80 early next year, and I had hoped that my VC and GC collection would remain on public display at the IWM for the rest of my days. Especially so as I had enjoyed my years as a trustee of the IWM. I had already made arrangements to leave the collection to the IWM when it was time for me to meet my maker.

It is inevitable that the collection will go into storage because it is impossible, in the short term at least, to find a suitable ‘home’ for it. The medals seem destined to gather dust in secure vaults – away from the public eye.

Readers of the Daily Sceptic will scarcely raise an eyebrow at yet another instance of Britain’s past being consigned to oblivion. Collections like these are the bedrock of museums and a nation’s cultural heritage. A society that does not value them reveals its true nature.

The Telegraph piece is worth reading in full, as is Lord Ashcroft’s comment.