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Auction: 19003 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 580

(x) Of Victoria Cross interest - an old well-struck tailor's Cross appertaining to Private J. Doogan, 1st Dragoon Guards, an Irish recipient who offered his horse to a wounded officer amidst a hail of enemy fire

Victoria Cross, bronze, suspension bar engraved 'Private John Doogan 1st. Dragoon Guards', central roundel to cross engraved '28th. Jan 1881', with wearing pin, a fine quality tailor's copy of some age, very fine

V.C. London Gazette 14 March 1882:

'For gallant conduct during the action of Laing's Nek on 28th January, 1881. During the charge of the mounted men Private Doogan, servant to Major Brownlow, 1st Dragoon Guards, seeing that officer (whose horse had been shot) dismounted and among the Boers, rode up and (though himself severely wounded) dismounted and pressed Major Brownlow to take his horse, receiving another wound while trying to induce him to accept it.'

John Doogan was born in March 1853 at Aughrim, County Galway, Ireland and was a 27 year old Private at the time of his exploits during the First Boer War. Doogan died at his home, 5 Folly Road, Folkestone, aged 86 on 24 January 1940. He was buried with full military honours in Shorncliffe Military Cemetery. Interestingly, he bequeathed his medals in his will to his family, who in turn presented the V.C. to the Colonel of Doogan's regiment at Cardiff Castle. Unsure where to display the medal, it spent a number of years over the bar in the Sergeant's Mess and was later loaned to the V.C. Centenary Exhibition. The Regiment was shortly thereafter posted on a tour of duty to Malaya and upon return forgot about the loan. They later assumed the medal was lost and several years later a search was made to no avail. In 1997, a Colonel of the Dragoon Guards received a letter from a London bank requesting that he pick up two parcels from the vault addressed to the regiment. On opening the parcels, the original V.C. was discovered and was returned to display in Cardiff Castle after 41 years being in the vault; sold with copied research.


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Sold for
£1,000

Starting price
£40