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No one could ever doubt the astonishing bravery of young Cornet William Bankes as he three times led a charge against rebel forces during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1858. Cornet William Bankes is the only person who received a VC posthumously in the 19th century.
It was said that William George Hawtry Bankes was born in Kingston Lacy, Dorset, one of the county’s finest houses, on the 11th of September 1836,and also the fifth child born to the Rt Hon George Bankes, the local MP, and his wife Georgina.
Young William received a good education at Temple Grove preparatory school in East Sheen and Westminster School, both in London.
After working briefly as a librarian in the House of Commons, Bankes was commissioned as a cornet in the 7th Regiment of Dragoons.
In early 1858 the regiment was involved in relieving Lucknow, which had been under siege by rebel forces, and by mid March the Kaiserbagh Palace and the Residency were recaptured from the rebels.
Most of the city was now in British hands and a large number of rebel soldiers retreated to Musa Bagh, an extensive palace complex to the north-west of the city.
Bankes personally led three charges, killing three of the enemy but in bitter hand-to-hand combat after his final charge he was unseated from his horse and brutally set upon by rebels wielding tulwars who hacked him to pieces.
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He received 11 separate wounds, many of them truly terrible, and was treated by the surgeon-general himself at the insistence of the commanding general Sir Colin Campbell.
A report drawn up at the hospital stated that “one leg is lopped off above the knee; the other is nearly severed; one arm is cleft to the bone; the other has gone entirely; and about the body are many slashes.
When a Dr Russell went to see him afterwards the brave youngster was quite cheerful and is reputed to have said, ‘They tell me, if I get over this I can go yachting’…”
It is understood that the mention of Dr Russell was a reference to William Howard Russell, the war correspondent, who was covering the Indian Mutiny for his newspaper As Bankes lay desperately wounded in hospital Queen Victoria heard of his courage and was so deeply moved by his plight that in a letter to the Princess Royal she wrote: “There is a poor young man, of the name Bankes, who has been cut almost to pieces, he fell and was surrounded by a set of fanatics who cut at him, his thigh was nearly severed from his body and so was his arm!
“Besides six other desperate wounds!
“He has had his right leg and his right arm amputated and yet they hope he will live.
“This is, they say, the pattern of patience and fortitude.”
Despite all the efforts to save him Bankes died in hospital in Lucknow on April 6, 1858, after contracting blood poisoning.
He was aged just 21 and single.
The original Royal Warrant did not contain a specific clause regarding posthumous awards but official policy was not to award the VC posthumously.
Instead, on rare occasions during the 19th century, the names of exceptionally brave officers and men were published in The London Gazette with a note at the end of the citation stating that they would have been awarded the VC had they not been killed.
Indeed the precise wording was that the man “would have been recommended to Her Majesty for confirmation in that distinction [the VC] had he survived”.
It is not known exactly how Bankes came to be awarded his posthumous VC but given Queen Victoria’s personal interest and involvement it appears highly likely that she took the decision herself.
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Either way the Queen took the highly unusual step of travelling to Kingston Lacy to present the VC to Bankes’ mother, even though there was never an official investiture at Buckingham Palace or elsewhere.
The Royal Warrant explicitly approving posthumous awards was not officially announced until 1920 although posthumous awards had been allowed in practice since 1902 after the end of the Second Boer War.
Since that change there have been hundreds of posthumous VC awards, most notably during the Great War when around a quarter of the 628 awards were to men who had died during or immediately after their VC action.
There are quite rightly several memorials to Cornet William Bankes VC, including a plaque and in the family vault at Wimborne Minster, near his Dorset home.