Re-listing of Victoria Cross 

I have deleted the section under this heading that read: ‘Twenty-seven years after Murphy's death, in July 1920, the rules for the Victoria Cross award were changed to exclude forfeiture. The eight extant forfeits—including that of Murphy—were then re-listed in the Victoria Cross register’. The statement is in error and there was no reference to support the statement although similar statements have been made in respect to all the forfeited awards.

The VC warrant was not changed in July 1920 to exclude forfeitures. The present VC warrant still contains a forfeiture clause although the wording was modified in 1931. Since the original warrant in 1856, the monarch has had the power to restore a forfeited award but such power has never been exercised. The claim that the eight awards were relisted in the Victoria Cross Registrar refers to the War Office Alphabetical list of Victoria Cross recipients last issued in 1953. The names of the eight recipients who forfeited their awards are listed in that publication but their names were never deleted from earlier lists. Instead, both the 1920 list and the 1953 list include a note at the end of the list stating that the following 'whose names are included in the previous list forfeited the Victoria Cross under authority of the Royal Warrant quoted in each case’.