George Nicholas Channer VC

Name: George Nicholas Channer

Conflict: Perak Campaign, Malaya

Gazetted: April 14, 1876

Service: Indian Army

Place/date of birth: Allahabad, India/January 7, 1843

Rank when awarded VC (and later highest rank): Brevet-Major (later General)

Date of bravery: December 20, 1875

London Gazette citation:

For having, with the greatest gallantry, been the first to jump into the Enemy’s Stockade, to which he had been dispatched with a small party of the 1st Ghoorkha Light Infantry, on the afternoon of the 20th December, 1875, by the Officer commanding the Malacca Column, to procure intelligence as to its strength, position &c.

Major Channer got completely in rear of the Enemy’s position, and finding himself so close that he could hear the voices of the men inside, who were cooking at the time, and keeping no look out, he beckoned to his men, and the whole party stole quietly forward to within a few paces of the Stockade. On jumping in, he shot the first man dead with his revolver, and his party then came up, and entered the Stockade, which was of a most formidable nature, surrounded by a bamboo palisade; about seven yards within was a log-house, loop-holed, with two narrow entrances, and trees laid latitudinally, to the thickness of two feet.

The Officer commanding reports that if Major Channer, by his foresight, coolness, and intrepidity, had not taken this Stockade, a great loss of life must have occurred, as from the fact of his being unable to bring guns to bear on it, from the steepness of the hill, and the density of the jungle, it must have been taken at the point of the bayonet.

Click here to see full Gazette entry.

Other decorations: CB

Place/date of death: Westward Ho!, Devon/December 13, 1905

Grave/memorials: East-the-Water Cemetery, Bideford, Devon/Roll of Honour and classroom name, Cheltenham College, Gloucestershire, and plaque at Norham Parish Church, Devon.

Origin of VC to the Lord Ashcroft collection: Purchased at auction, Dix Noonan Webb, London, 2016

Current location of VC: Displayed on rotation at The Lord Ashcroft Gallery: Extraordinary Heroes exhibition, Imperial War Museum