92 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
The impossibility of arguing with the relatives of a dead man is well
shown by the intensely disagreeable and threatening tone of Sir J. Coghill
in his letter to the S. of S. dated 3rd August 1902.^75
Broderick shared some of Hamilton’s misgivings, but approved the
measure: ‘Submit to the king and at the same time make it perfectly clear no
one will be allowed to participate in the decision who is not one of these
nine.’^76 Lord Roberts did not credit their apprehensions; when Hamilton
queried him a final time over the proposal he replied with a brief note:
‘Carry Out. I confess I do not share your fears.’^77
Subsequent to the deliberations of Roberts, Broderick, and Hamilton, the
proposal to grant the six pre-Boer War VCs was submitted to Edward VII
on 2 November 1902. The king refused to approve the measure on the
grounds it would provoke a flood of submissions from grieving relatives.^78
It is interesting to note that he had received the rambling and quite mad
letter from Thomas Morely, the man who claimed three VCs for his actions
in the Crimea and manufactured an entire heroic history of himself spanning
three continents, just days before the decision was made. The problem was
that his majestyhadapproved the issue of posthumous VCs to the three
dead heroes of the Boer War, which left an awkward situation with the
War Office caught between the monarch on one side and adamant relatives
on the other.
Another reason cited for the King’s reluctance to backdate Victoria Crosses
was that so much time had elapsed since the original acts. As Lord Knollys
later explained: ‘H.M. thinks that with 2 exceptions the acts of gallantry
were so long ago that it would be hardly understood were the VC to be
given to the representatives of the deceased officers and men after a lapse
of so many years.’^79 At some point in late 1906, however, the widow of
Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill wrote directly to the King requesting that
the VC he should have earned at Isandhlwana be forwarded to her as his
next of kin. It was clear that she understood the importance of the award
despite the years that had passed since 1879.
Accordingly, the Crown requested further information from the War
Office on 3 December 1906 regarding the particulars of Melvill’s case.
General Sir Arthur Wynne at the War Office used this opportunity to bring
up the cases of the other five ‘would haves,’ pointing out that there was
no substantive difference between Melvill and any of the others, and that
to grant one and not the others would be a great injustice. Edward VII
decided, based on this information, to go ahead and grant the VC to the six
- on strict condition that no other pre-Boer War claimants be considered