"Missing" Victoria Crosses, Chelmsford City Museum.

[leigh kitchen]

Victoria Crosses "lost"?

"There is no evidence to suggest that two missing Victoria Cross medals were stolen, a museum spokesperson said.

The medals were first noted as missing after a routine inspection in September 2023 at Chelmsford City Museum.

"The medals are more than 120 years old and were awarded to Sergeant William McWheeney in 1857 and Lieutenant Francis Parsons in 1900.

An Essex Police spokesperson said it was working to "determine whether a theft has occurred."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...x-68428845.amp

[crest-insignia]

Saw this on another forum yesterday.

How do you ‘mislay’ x2 Victoria Crosses?
T

[William]

Unbelievably irresponsible.

Possibly the apparently clueless museum staff are not aware of the enormous relevance of such individually unique military artifacts?

If they have not been stolen, where are they? After five months, no progress has been made in locating these immensely valuable and nationally important antiques?

Appalling.

[Skippy]

When your talking about circa £500K combined worth of articles, there is very little ambiguity in the mind of this policeman as to whether these medals are “lost” or “stolen”, as there are clear grounds for motivation to commit criminality here.

Cheers……John

[altcar73]

If they have been stolen, then I'd suggest that the thief will have great difficulty in getting rid of them. Unless of course they were stolen to order in which case they will almost certainly surface in the fullness of time, albeit that may be many years hence. At the end of the day, a named VC is not something that can be easily sold on the open market.

Apologies to any professional museum curators who may read this, but generally speaking I've found that such individuals often know very little about the items they curate and are invariably appointed for the knowledge they purportedly have in preserving and conserving the items in their care. In other words one medal is very much the same as the next one.

Dave