Henry Hook ( VC ) Alfred Henry " Harry " Hook VC ( 6 August 1850 – 12 March 1905 ) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross for his actions at the Battle of Rorke ' s Drift , the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces . Background . Born in Churcham , Gloucestershire , Hook originally served in the Monmouth Militia for five years before enlisting in the regular army in March 1877 , aged 26 . Previously serving in the 9th Xhosa War in 1877 , he received a scalp injury during the battle of Rorke ' s Drift , and retired from the regular army 17 months later in June 1880 , but later served 20 years in 1st Volunteer Battalion , Royal Fusiliers , reaching the rank of Sergeant - Instructor . He received his VC from Sir Garnet Wolseley , GOC South Africa at Rorke ' s Drift on 3 August 1879 . After his 1880 discharge he was found the position of Inside Duster at the British Museum thanks to the intervention of Gonville Bromhead , Lord Chelmsford and the Prince of Wales . He was subsequently promoted to take charge of readers umbrellas , before resigning due to ill health in 1904 . During this period he lived at Sydenham Hill . He died of pulmonary tuberculosis on 12 March 1905 at Osborne Villas , Roseberry Avenue , Gloucester and is buried in St Andrew ' s churchyard , Churcham . The Hook family ' s military links have continued through the Second World War up to the Falklands Conflict . Ronald Hook ( 1922 – 1995 ) of Gloucester , whose father had known Henry Hook well , served in the Parachute Regiment in the Second World War and was among the first wave of Allied airborne troops to land on D - Day in Normandy . Two of Ronald Hook ' s sons ( Timothy and Andrew ) served in the Royal Navy . Andrew Hook fought in the Falklands War . Continuing the family connection with Africa , Ronald Hook ' s grandson , Antony Hook worked in southern Africa ( Hwange , Matabeleland ) in 1998 on the construction of a clinic by an expedition of Scouts . Antony Hook told an audience of students at Dover Grammar School for Boys , " The needs of Victorian society required my relative Henry Hook to travel to the other side of the world and fight with courage and honour . Modern society enabled and equally required me to go the same region for purposes of peace and friendship . The time has passed when we needed to so frequently call together so many young men to go and fight and we should all be grateful for that . " Ronald ' s wife Peggy ( Margaret ) Hook ( 1922 – present ) still lives in Gloucester . Rorke ' s Drift . Alfred Henry Hook was 28 years old , and a private in B Company of the 2nd Battalion , 24th Regiment of Foot ( later The South Wales Borderers ) , British Army during the Anglo - Zulu War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC . Hook and five other privates were ordered on the afternoon of 22 January 1879 to protect approximately 30 patients unable to be moved from the temporary hospital at Rorke ' s Drift station . On 22 / 23 January 1879 at Rorke ' s Drift , Natal , South Africa , a distant room of the hospital had been held for more than an hour by three privates , and when finally they had no ammunition left the Zulus burst in , and killed one of the men and two patients . One of the privates ( John Williams ) however , succeeded in knocking a hole in the partition and taking the last two patients through into the next ward , where he found Private Hook . " These two men then worked together - one holding the enemy at bayonet point while the other broke through three more partitions - and they were then able to bring eight patients into the inner line of defence " . The 1881 census shows Henry Hook V . C . as a servant in the household of George Owen Willis , a doctor in Monmouth , Monmouthshire The Medal . His Victoria Cross is displayed at the South Wales Borderers Museum , Brecon , Powys , Wales . In Popular Culture . In the film " Zulu " , Hook is depicted as an insubordinate malingerer placed under arrest in the hospital , only to come good during the battle . However , Saul David writes in his book , Zulu : The Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 , that he was there as the hospital cook , subsequently as part of a small guard detail assigned to protect the patients . Saul David continues that far from the miscreant portrayed , Hook was actually a teetotaler and model soldier . Further to this , he had been awarded Good Conduct pay shortly before the battle . He was portrayed by English actor James Booth . Related Detail . In his autobiography , pop singer Mark E . Smith claimed that Hook was an ancestor of his father , which led to the Smith family being invited as guests of honour to the Whitefield showing of " Zulu " .