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Post by Les on Aug 3, 2006 20:18:48 GMT
Just heard that Pte Marriner's VC is to be auctioned by Spinks 23 November 2006. When I hear any further news, I'll pop it on here.
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Post by Les on Oct 31, 2006 16:21:09 GMT
Article from today's Telegraph
Lost VC is found in a drawer
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:30am GMT 31/10/2006
A Victoria Cross won on the Western Front but apparently lost for decades is to be sold at the London auctioneers Spink.
It was found in a drawer by the present owners when they were emptying the home of a relative from the north of England who had died.
Spink said yesterday that they had been approached by a lawyer representing the finders. The lawyer insisted on anonymity for the new owners and their relative and would not say whether they were related to Pte William Mariner who won the award in May 1915 during the second battle of Ypres.
Mariner, a former miner from Salford, Lancs, born in 1882, won the VC for crawling through no-man's-land and single-handedly destroying a German machinegun post. He survived another 13 months before being blown to bits on the night preceding the Battle of the Somme when, according to a contemporary account, "he lost his remaining senses" during an attack.
The lawyer told Spink that he believed that the medal, which has been estimated to fetch £70,000 at the London auction on Nov 23, may have been "put away in the drawer" 60 years ago.
The "loss" of the medal appears to mirror Mariner's tragic life. His real name was Wignall but after serving in India with the King's Royal Rifles, he transferred to the reserves in 1909. As a civilian, he acquired a criminal record for breaking and entering and on the outbreak of the First World War rejoined his old regiment as a rifleman under the new name.
In May 1915, his battalion mounted an offensive in the Cambrin sector but after seven days' fighting, it was still being severely inconvenienced by a machinegun nest. Knowing his chances of survival were thin, mariner nevertheless volunteered to silence it.
During a thunderstorm on May 22, he crawled through the British defences and the enemy wire, inched his way up the parapet of the post and threw a bomb into the emplacement.
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Post by Les on Nov 23, 2006 19:03:30 GMT
Just checked Ebay (of all places!!) and the final bid price was shown as £105,000.
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