Dishonouring of a true hero
Fury as fallen soldier’s school plans to sell his Victoria Cross – to pay for a new sports hall
WHEN the fallen Lieutenant Colonel Philip Bent’s Victoria Cross was bequeathed to his old school, his mother said she hoped it would inspire future generations.
But almost 100 years after the brave soldier’s death, his old grammar school has triggered a row by revealing it wants to sell the medal – to fund a new sports hall.
The move has been branded ‘immoral’ by a local museum, while Lt Col Bent’s descendants have complained that they were not consulted over the proposal.
The former Ashby Boys’ Grammar School pupil was awarded the VC – the highest award for gallantry in the presence of the enemy – after he was killed at Ypres in Belgium aged 26 in October 1917. He was shot down while leading a charge and shouting ‘Come on the Tigers’, a reference to the nickname of his Leicestershire Regiment.
In 1923, the medal – now thought to be worth well over £150,000 – was sent to the school by Lt Col Bent’s mother, Sophia, along with four other medals the heroic soldier was awarded. Her letter stated: ‘I am hoping they will serve as a lasting stimulant to high ideals.’
In the 1970s, the school lent all the medals to the Tigers regiment, but the VC has spent the past four decades in a bank vault because the insurance costs of putting it on display are so high. Now the school at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire intends to auction the medals – but both the regiment and Lt Col Bent’s
‘Thought there would be nobody left to object’
surviving family are against the proposal. Rosemary Willis, 92, whose late husband John was Lt Col’s nephew, said the plan was ‘very, very wrong’ and Mrs Willis’s 54-year-old son Keith said he believed the school was attempting to sell the medals for ‘short-term gain’.
He added: ‘The school have made no attempt to contact us over this matter at all. We only became aware of what they were planning when the regiment contacted us.
‘The first time we had an inkling this was a possibility was shortly after the death of my father. I suspect the school thought he was the last surviving relative and therefore there would be nobody left to object.’
He went on to say: ‘Once the medals are sold they are gone. They were never donated to raise money and will not go anywhere near paying for a sports hall that size. They should remain with the regiment.’
Captain Tim Wilkes, chairman of trustees of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, said: ‘ We do not want the VC to be sold. We feel that would be wrong.’ He said the medals could fetch £250,000 together.
But his regiment is questioning whether the school, now called Ashby School, can consider itself to be the legal owner of the medals, so therefore profit from their sale.
And last week, trustees of nearby Ashby-de-la-Zouch Museum wrote to the school’s headteacher, Eddie Green, arguing that selling the medals would be ‘immoral’.
Lt Col Bent was commanding the 9th Battalion of the Leicesters when he was killed near Ypres, and was awarded the VC posthumously for ‘most conspicuous bravery during a heavy hostile attack’.
The Leicestershire Regiment dates back to 1688 and saw action in both World Wars before being amalgamated into the Royal Anglian Regiment in 1964. They were called the Tigers because their cap badge gained an image of a Bengal Tiger after an 18-year deployment in India from 1804.
Yesterday Ashby School’s chairman of governors Elaine Blunt insisted that while selling the medals ‘divided opinion’, it would ‘benefit future generations’ of pupils.