Rare medals taken from NZ to British museum

Putararu dairy farmer John Lamb, 70, has donated four medals won in the fighting involving the doomed Charge of the Light Brigade to a UK regimental museum, the Yorkshire Post reported.

New Zealand is a long way from one of history's most notorious military disasters at Balaklava in the Crimea, but the four medals have been sitting in this country for nearly 80 years.

Private James Lamb of the 13th Light Dragoons won the Crimea Medal with clasps for Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman and Sebastopol, the Turkish Medal, and long service and good conduct medals - and drew straws for a Victoria Cross awarded for the rescue of a dying officer.

His descendent yesterday presented them to the Regimental Museum of the 13th/18th Royal Hussars and Light Dragoons at Cannon Hall, in Cawthorne, near Barnsley.

Mr Lamb had inherited the medals from his father, who emigrated to New Zealand in the 1930s, and said yesterday he thought the time was right for the medals to return to England.

Lamb was awarded the medals for his actions in the doomed charge on October 25, 1854, after he and other soldiers, rescued an officer from the battlefield under heavy fire.

After bungled orders led to the disastrous charge by the unsupported Light Brigade straight at a battery of Russian guns - killing or wounding nearly half the 600 men who took part - Lamb, Corporal Joseph Malone, and Troop Sergeant-Major John Berryman moved a severely wounded officer out of range of the guns.

Their actions were brought to the attention of Queen Victoria, who thought their bravery was worth the Victoria Cross.

Lamb told the Strand Magazine of October 1891, that the number of medals to be awarded for the action was limited: he and Malone drew lots for the decoration and Malone won.

The Yorkshire Post said military experts described Pte Lamb's medals as having a "very high value".

Mr Lamb said he felt that it was important that they were placed with people who would look after them and recognise their importance: "The medals were handed to James's only son James Henry, and then to my father James Godfrey, who was also an only son.

I was also the only son in my family and they came to me, but now I have no sons."

He chose the museum because it already holds Malone's medals and his VC on display.

"I will miss the medals, but I will also be relieved that they are in the right place."

The regimental secretary of the Light Dragoons and keeper of the military collection at Cannon Hall, Captain Gary Locker, described the donation as "extremely generous and extremely significant".

Capt Locker said: "When Mr Lamb first contacted me ... I thought it was my duty to tell him that the medals were of a very high value.

"But he wrote back and told me that he thought they should reside here."

- NZPA