page_title: Valentine Bambrick
section_title: Incident at Aldershot
hierarchical_section_title: Valentine Bambrick / Incident at Aldershot
caption_attribution_description: English: Print of Mr Baron Pigott (1813-1875) - Lord Justice
context_page_description: Valentine Bambrick VC was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
  Bambrick was "a son of the Army" - his father, at least one uncle, and his older brother John all served with the 11th Hussars.
context_section_description: On 12 December 1863 Bambrick appeared at the Winchester Assizes before Mr. Justice Baron Pigott. There Valentine Bambrick, a soldier, and Charlotte Johnson, spinster, without occupation, were indicted for violently assaulting Henry Milner Russell (1828-1894), and stealing from his person four medals, of the value of 30s., at Aldershot, on 15 November 1863. Russell had married Eliza née Avery in 1861 and had been in Camp at Aldershot since at least the same year.
  Bambrick's version of the incident was that he had been passing the lodging-house in Pickford Street where Russell resided and had gone to the assistance of a prostitute calling "Murder!" who was being attacked by Lance-Corporal Henry Russell of the Commissariat Department. Russell was unable to fend off the stronger Bambrick and during the ensuing struggle Russell's medals fell from his breast. Bambrick claimed that after the fight he had picked these medals up and placed them on a mantlepiece, from where they disappeared. Bambrick stated he had no interest in Russell's medals as he himself had the Victoria Cross and the pension that went with it.
  However, the Court accepted Russell's version of events:
  Mr H. T. Cole prosecuted. It appeared that the prisoners were standing at the door of a lodging house in Pickford Street, Aldershot, at night, on November 15. Russell, who was lance-corporal in the commissariat department, came up. Bambrick asked Russell to drink, and he took some beer out of his pint. They then went into Russell's room, who lodged in the house, and Russell said he would stand some beer, and he was in the act of giving the female prisoner some money to get the beer when Bambrick seized him by the throat, threw him on the bed, and tore from his breast four silver medals, one for the Punjab, one for the Sutlej, and one for the Crimea.
  Russell called "Murder," and his cries were heard by some of the other soldiers, who rushed in and took Bambrick from off Russell, and he was conveyed to the guardhouse. Two of the medals were afterwards found in the passage, Russell was insensible, having been nearly choked. Bambrick made a long address to the jury. He stated that he had been in the service 10 years, and would have been discharged the day after the occurrence.
  He had a pension of £10 a year, and, what was dearer to a soldier than any other medal, a Victoria Cross, but he would tell the jury the real facts.
  On that night, as he was walking with the female prisoner towards this house, in which she also lodged, he heard cries of "Murder." He hastened and ran into the house, and saw a girl named Hayley coming out of Russell's room. She was crying, and said that Russell had beaten her and nearly strangled her. He went into the room and struck Russell, and they had a struggle together, and then the soldiers came in and took him up. 
  These facts he could have proved on the first day of the assizes, because then Hayley was in Winchester, but as she was what was called an "unfortunate," she could not afford to remain in Winchester.
  The learned Judge having summed up, the jury found the prisoner guilty. 
  The Judge said he should defer passing sentence till the morning. Bambrick replied, “it is of no consequence what you do now. I don't care about losing my pension; but I have lost my position. I don't care what you do with me. You may hang me if you like.”
  This morning his Lordship passed sentence. He said, “Valentine Bambrick, I don't know that I ever had a more painful duty than in considering your case. I have felt great anxiety about it, and have considered everything you urged in your defence; but the evidence which satisfied the jury has satisfied me, and it does appear to me to be as clear a case as ever was tried. You say you had a witness, and that witness might have put some other construction on the matter. If you had made an application to have your trial postponed, I should have been the first to listen to your application, and I can't help thinking, from the intelligence you displayed, you must have been aware that you could have made such an app
caption: Bambrick appeared before Mr Justice Baron Pigott - The Pictorial World (1875)
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