Samuel Parkes ( VC ) Samuel Parkes VC ( probably late 1815 – 15 November 1864 ) was an English 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 . Parkes was awarded his VC for his actions during the Charge of the Light Brigade . Details . Born in Wigginton , Tamworth , Staffordshire probably in later 1815 , he was baptised at the Church of St Editha , Tamworth , on 24 December 1815 , the son of Thomas Parks / Parkes and Lydia Fearn / Fern / Fearns ; no exact date of birth has been established . Within the family , it is said that he was known as " George " . He had two sisters , Elizabeth ( baptised 1812 ) and Mary ( baptised 1819 ) ; no other siblings are recorded in St Editha ' s baptismal register . He died on 14 November 1864 at Stanhope Lodge , Hyde Park , London . He was buried in Brompton Cemetery , London in an unmarked pauper ' s grave ( no . 39265 , reference R80 ’ 6 ” x 109 ’ 3 ” ) on 19 November 1864 after a funeral at St George ' s , Hanover Square . A memorial stone was placed on his grave in May 1999 , thanks to the efforts of Peter Elkin , and a plaque was placed in Tamworth parish church on Balaklava Day 2004 . A new memorial was unveiled in the village of his birth on 14 September 2011 following a fund - raising campaign by the people of Wigginton . Was he born in 1813 or 1815 ? According to the Army , he was born in 1813 . His own declaration on enlistment declares his age as 18 years old while his discharge papers state precisely that he was 44 years 3 months ( i . e . he was born in August or September 1813 ) . His death certificate and the Brompton Cemetery burial register both say , however , that he was aged 49 at death , in which case he was born in 1815 . The years around 1830 were a time of agricultural depression in England so , like many before and since , the 16 - year - old lad might have lied about his age to enlist in a secure job with reasonable pay . Furthermore , birth and baptism usually followed each other rapidly at that time . On balance , 1815 would seem to be the more likely year of his birth . Early career . Described as a labourer , he enlisted in the 4th Queens Own Light Dragoons on 30 July 1831 and was discharged on 1 December 1857 with four good conduct badges , as an out - pensioner of Chelsea Hospital . He served 11 years with the 4th Light Dragoons in India , including the First Afghan War ( Ghunzee medal ) , and in the Crimean War . Peacetime service with the 4th saw Parkes in Wales and Ireland as well as in England . At Balaklava , he was serving as an orderly to the regimental commanding officer , Colonel Lord George Paget . Parkes ' discharge papers show a chequered military career . He earned four good conduct badges , but he won and lost the first badge five times between 1838 and 1850 ( i . e . covering his entire service in India and more ) . He gained the second only in January 1852 and then lost it the same year , regaining it in 1853 . He then managed to gain a third in November 1855 and was awarded the fourth only on 18 November 1857 ( four days after his discharge Board ) . In addition , he was sentenced to 56 days imprisonment in Galway Gaol in 1848 by a district court martial in Ireland . Parkes was confined on 9 November 1848 , convicted on 21 November 1848 and released on 15 January 1849 – so in addition to his 56 day sentence he was in prison for 11 days before conviction . The offence itself is not specified in the Regimental Muster Roll . Neither is it mentioned in Parkes ' discharge papers . But papers catalogued in The National Archives as WO 86 / 6 show that he was found guilty of being ‘ drunk on duty ’ and was one of three privates from his regiment so convicted on the same day – one also received 56 days but the other was sentenced to 70 days . This blemished record explains why Parkes was not awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal , which for the cavalry then required 20 years of irreproachable character . Crimea . Parkes thus remained a Private in the 4th Light Dragoons ( from 1861 , the 4th Hussars - The Queen ' s Own ) throughout his career . He won his VC on 25 October 1854 in the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War , when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC : On 25 October 1854 at Balaclava , Crimean Peninsula , ( Charge of the Light Brigade ) The VC citation refers to Hugh Crawford as being a Trumpet Major , but he was not promoted to that rank until 1 December 1855 . Elkin claims to own the sword which Parkes carried at Balaklava . The sword may have belonged to Parkes at some point in his military career , but it cannot be the one that he used on 25 October 1854 at Balaklava because the VC citation clearly states that Parkes was " deprived of his sword with a shot " and then taken prisoner . What is more , the 4th Light Dragoons had not at that point been equipped with the 1853 pattern light cavalry sabre . Parkes won his VC that day armed with an 1829 pattern light cavalry . Parkes and Crawford were held as Russian prisoners until 26 October 1855 - which makes Parkes the very first prisoner of war VC . Joseph Grigg , who charged with the 4th Light Dragoons at Balaklava , in his article " The Charge of the Six Hundred " reports that " Parks told us that he and some others were taken to St . Petersburg , where they were well treated , and allowed eight pence a day each for food , which was very cheap . " Later life . On leaving the army after 26 years 58 days reckonable service ( i . e . excluding the period in gaol in 1848 ) , he was appointed a warder at Hampton Court , with a pension of 1 / 1d as an out - pensioner of Chelsea Hospital . He subsequently became the Inspector of the Park Constables in Hyde Park . At one time he worked out of the constables station inside Marble Arch . He married Ann Jeffrey on 13 February 1858 at St George ' s , Hanover Square , London ; their marriage certificate records that both were then living in Oxford Street . They had no children . As far as is known , he had not been married before or during his long years in the army . Parkes was one of a number of Light Brigade survivors who in the spring of 1863 swore an affidavit in the celebrated libel case of Cardigan v Calthorpe . His evidence was one of 15 affidavits collected by Calthorpe , the defendant . His discharge papers describe him as 6 ft 2 ins tall with a " fair " complexion , grey eyes and " light " hair . Parkes was the oldest man to win the VC in the Crimean War and is the VC with the earliest campaign medal ( Ghuznee 1839 ) . His death certificate records that he died of apoplexy . Medals . Parkes ' Victoria Cross and other medals are owned by his regiment and are displayed in Regimental Headquarters , as is the painting of his VC action by Chevalier Desanges . In total he was awarded four medals : the Victoria Cross , the Ghuznee Medal , the British Crimean Medal with three clasps ( Alma , Balaklava , Sebastopol ) and the Turkish Crimean Medal ( British variety ) . The VC was bought at auction by the officers of the 4th Hussars and presented to the regiment on Balaklava Day 1954 to mark the centenary of the battle . There was once a second VC awarded to Parkes . Bought at Sotheby ’ s on 21 December 1879 ( lot 275 ) for £1 - 12s - 0d by Viscount Dillon , he presented it to the Royal United Service Institute Museum c . 1920 . Why Parkes had two VCs is not clear , but the subsequent story of his medals is itself complex . At what date either Parkes , or his family , lost or sold his medals is unknown - although in his regiment the story is that one evening , finding himself without money , he used his VC to pay for several pints of beer . The original VC presented by Queen Victoria in 1857 turned up in 1940 when it was sold in London . It was sold again in 1953 to an anonymous benefactor of the Royal Norfolk Regiment , together with Parkes ' Ghuznee medal . He gave them both to their Museum but the Norfolks returned them so that they could be offered to the 4th Hussars - whose officers bought them at auction . As for the duplicate , the RUSI Museum catalogue ( 1924 edition ) , states " Experts have been consulted , but they are unable to say which , on comparing them , is the genuine one . " On the closure of that Museum in 1963 , it was given to the Museum of the Green Howards as a copy with instructions that when they no longer wanted it , it was to be destroyed , which they subsequently did ( so it no longer exists ) . Both Crimean medals ( without the Ghuznee medal or a VC , real or copy ) , were sold at Sotheby ' s ( part of lot 110 ) , for £3 - 18s - 0d on 21 June 1906 - in a sale at which the Crimean campaign medals of another four Light Brigade men were also sold . Both were sold again at Glendinings ( lot 16 ) , on 12 March 1907 , for £2 - 8s - 0d and reappeared in their sale rooms twice more , on both occasions with a copy of a VC : on 27 March 1914 ( lot 246 ) , when they made £6 - 15s - 0d and on 23 January 1920 ( lot 304 ) when they went for £3 - 7s - 6d . These are presumably the two Crimean medals that in the mid - 1950s were somehow reunited with Parkes ' Ghuznee medal and his VC and sold to the 4th Hussars . But a second British Crimean campaign medal with three bars named to Parkes exists - it was shown to Sotheby ' s and verified by them as genuine in 1972 / 73 . The 4th Light Dragoons ' regimental returns in the Crimean Medal Roll [ PRO , WO 100 / 24 ] show Parkes ' entitlement to the clasp for Alma ( at f . 203 recto ) while there is a dash against Inkerman , noting he had been taken prisoner on 25 October . His entitlement to the Balaklava bar is recorded on folio 228 recto . But his name does not appear in the list of those entitled to the Sebastopol clasp ( folios 216 recto to 225 recto ) . Neither does Trumpeter Crawford ’ s name appear . If a name is absent from the surviving rolls for the Sebastopol clasp , but a clasp is present on the medal , the clasp may have been issued either on a Supplementary roll that has since been lost , or on an OC Certificate . Alternatively , the clasp may have been added without warrant at some later date . Pictures . No photograph of Samuel Parkes is known to exist ( unless , by sheer chance , he is one of the privates of the 4th Light Dragoons who appear in a photograph taken at the Cavalry Barracks at Brighton c . 1853 - 54 , illustrated in Wilkinson - Latham , no . 27 p . 35 ) . The oil painting by the Chevalier Louis Desanges may be a fair and genuine likeness . Between 1857 and 1862 , Desanges painted 50 VC winners . Of those , some 23 were Crimean VC winners , but only four of those depicted in the series were rankers . Depicting acts of saving the lives of other soldiers is the common thread explaining why these individual VC winners were picked out for commemoration in the series of paintings , but Samuel Parkes is the only one of the entire 50 to illustrate a ranker saving another ranker , as opposed to a ranker saving an officer . The set of VC paintings were displayed at the Crystal Palace from 1862 to c . 1880 . They were then bought by Lord Wantage VC who presented them to the Wantage town council in 1900 . Later , the collection was dispersed , many being bought by regimental museums . The portraits were widely reproduced as postcards and photographs . The Desanges portrait is reproduced in M . Barthorp , " Heroes of the Crimea . The Battles of Balaklava & Inkerman . " ( Blandford , London , 1991 ) , p . 132 and in colour in Elkin , " Tamworth ' s Forgotten Hero . " , p . 145 . Parkes also appears in the watercolour ‘ The Queen distributing the first Victoria Crosses in Hyde Park , 26 June 1857 ’ by G H Thomas that is in the British royal collection . Not much of him can be seen at the very far left , but he is shown ( correctly ) wearing the newly introduced dragoon uniform . This painting is reproduced in Elkin , " Tamworth ' s Forgotten Hero . " , p . 44 . VC winners were a popular subject for postcards and cigarette cards , but none showing Parkes is accurate , e . g . a John Player & Sons cigarette card from their 1914 series ‘ Victoria Cross ’ ( card no . 5 ) shows him winning his VC still mounted on his horse . The coloured Raphael Tuck oilette postcard ( number 9247 ; artist = H . Montague Love , 1905 ) in their series ‘ How he won the Victoria Cross ’ is an even more fanciful depiction of Parkes , showing him dressed in the uniform of a hussar and saving a lancer . This card is reproduced in Elkin , " Tamworth ' s Forgotten Hero . " , p . 143 . At least Valentine ' s " Artotype " series ' The King ' s Army , 1854 ' ( artist R . Stewart ) showed the 4th at Balaklava dressed correctly as dragoons with the right regimental facings , even if the caption called them the 4th Hussars .