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Sgt Robert Grant with his Victoria Cross, inset |
Grave 15054, the last resting place of the only Met officer to win a VC
Police plan memorial to the soldier-turned-constable who was given a pauper’s burial
AN unmarked pauper’s grave at Highgate cemetery holds the remains of one of Britain’s bravest soldiers, whose career as a Kentish Town police constable could soon be celebrated by a belated monument, the New Journal can reveal.
Robert Grant was a corporal in the army when he won Britain’s highest award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross, for risking his life to save a comrade in 1857.
But he ended his days as a bobby on the beat, dying of “inflammation of the lungs” at the age of 30 in 1867 while serving as a police constable in Kentish Town. He was buried with 10 others in a common grave.
Now officers at Kentish Town police station want to see his resting place commemorated, and have written to Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and other senior officers to ask for money to put up a monument.
“We think he is the only Met police officer to have held a VC, and we think that should be marked in some way,” said Camden crime prevention officer Dave King.
“To die of consumption was not unusual at that time, apparently, but to have a VC winner in a pauper’s grave tells you something about the Met of those days. We will have discussions to see how we can mark it.”
Grave 15054, which holds Robert Grant’s body, is one of several covered by footpaths linking more affluent plots.
The Friends of Highgate Cemetery, the charity which maintains the 20-acre graveyard, has a long list of famous names buried there, including political philosopher Karl Marx, novelist George Eliot and poet Christina Rossetti and another VC winner, but no mention is made of Robert Grant.
Friends’ assistant gravedigger and keen historian Phil Seaton, whose research into Grant’s history alerted the Met, said yesterday (Wednesday) that the police officer was among the first recipients of the Victoria Cross during what was then known as the Indian Mutiny.
He said: “The cemetery was obliged to take burials from those who died in parishes in north London, and there are a number of common graves. But it is interesting, and quite sad, that a VC winner, and a serving police officer, should end up in one.”
His research has revealed that PC 306 Robert Grant joined the Met’s Y Division aged 27 in August 1864 after 10 years in the army, giving his occupation as labourer.
Mr Seaton uncovered the medal citation for the 20-year-old Corporal Grant, later promoted to Sergeant in the Fifth Regiment of Foot: “For conspicuous devotion at Alumbagh, on the 24th September 1857, in proceeding under a heavy and galling fire, to save the life of Private Deveney, whose leg had been shot away, and eventually carrying him safe into camp.” |
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