VC among six medals sold

Irish Times 9 February 1990

A Victoria Cross was one of a group of six medals won by the Kildare-born great grandson of King William IV, which have been sold for £41,800 at Sotheby’s in London.

Brigadier-General Charles FitzClarence, of the Royal Fusiliers and later of the Irish Guards, was awarded the VC for his bravery during the defence of Mafeking in the Boer war in 1899.

The grandson of one of King William’s illegitimate sons, Brig.-Gen. FitzClarence, who was born in 1866, was killed in action in France in 1914, but not before he had been awarded five more medals which were also part of yesterday’s sale.

They included a Coronation Medal (1911), a Queen’s South African medal with 3 clasps (1899), a 1914 star with bar, a British War medal and a Victory medal with oak palm. They were bought by an anonymous private collector.