Victoria Cross Medal
In September 1972 Adelaide City Council was given a Victoria Cross (VC) medal to display in the Council Chamber at the Adelaide Town Hall. The VC had been won by Reginald Roy Inwood during the First World War.
Roy Inwood
Reginald Roy Inwood was born on 14 July 1890 at North Adelaide, the eldest of three sons of labourer Edward Inwood and his wife Mary. The family later moved to Broken Hill where Roy Inwood grew up and began working in the local mines. In August 1914 he enlisted in the AIF, 10th Infantry Battalion of the Royal South Australian Regiment (‘The Adelaide Rifles’).
Roy Inwood won the VC for his actions at the Battle for the Menin Road, Polygon Wood, East of Ypres, Belgium on 21 September 1917, when he was credited with single-handedly wiping out an enemy machine-gun position.
After the War Roy Inwood returned briefly to Broken Hill before moving to Adelaide where he was employed by the Adelaide City Council as a labourer and lavatory attendant from 1928 until 1955. He married three times but had no children. He died on 23 October 1971, at Tara Private Hospital, St Peters.
Roy Inwood was accorded a full military funeral and was buried in the AIF section of West Terrace Cemetery.
VC Donation
In his will Roy Inwood bequeathed all his war medals to the ‘10th Battalion Club’. They intended to hand the VC to the Australian War Memorial, but Roy Inwood was not in favour of this preferring that his medal remain in Adelaide. So in June 1971 the Battalion decided, with Roy Inwood’s consent, to present the VC to the Adelaide City Council ‘to be displayed in a position of dignity’ in the Council Chamber close to where the Battalion’s flags were laid up.
It was considered appropriate for the Council to have the VC because Roy Inwood had worked for it for so long. There was also a traditional link between the City and the 10th Battalion in which he had served. It therefore seemed fitting for the City to be given custody of its most celebrated war hero’s highly prized war medal.
The VC was presented to the Adelaide City Council on 25 September 1972 and accessioned into the City of Adelaide Civic Collection.
VC Display
Roy Inwood’s VC was displayed in the Council Chamber from 1972 until 1989 when it was decided to place the original VC in secure storage and display a replica of the medal in its place in the Chamber. This was prompted by concerns for the security of the original medal, and followed extensive conjecture in the media about the rising value of these precious medals.
Displaying a replica in place of an original is appropriate best-practice curatorial management often employed by museums and galleries to reduce risk to extremely valuable collection items. The real VC was stored in the high security vault at the Council’s Archives until such time as more adequate security could be provided for it to be permanently displayed in the Council Chamber.
During 2005 the display of Roy Inwood’s original VC medal became the subject of considerable media and community interest and debate. Some parties called for the medal to be sent to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to be displayed in its national VC’s Collection. The Council consulted extensively with the Inwood family and other stakeholders about what should happen to the VC. The majority believed Roy Inwood’s dying wishes must be honoured and that the medal should remain in South Australia and be returned to the Council Chamber where he had originally intended it be displayed.
In December 2005, therefore, Council decided to allocate funds for the purpose of strengthening security in the Council Chamber to permit the VC to be returned there.
VC Medals
The Victoria Cross medal is the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in wartime in the British Commonwealth.
The VC has its origins in the Crimean War 1854-6, the first medals being awarded by Queen Victoria in 1857 for conspicuous bravery or some other act of pre-eminent valour or self -sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the face of the enemy.
The VC was designed, and has only ever been made by, London jewellers Hancock and Co. It is cast in metal taken from Russian guns captured during the Crimean War (although during and after the First World War it is fairly certain that metal from captured Chinese guns was used for a short period). The metal is then chased and finished by hand and the components of the decoration treated chemically to obtain the uniform dark brown finish.
The Cross is 3.49cm wide and, together with the suspender bar and link, weighs about 24.66gm, although chasing and finishing may cause slight variation in these figures.
Details of the recipient are engraved in capital letters on the reverse of the suspender bar, and the date or dates of the act of gallantry in the centre circle of the reverse of the Cross.
Because of the nature of the award, it can be conferred on an individual posthumously
Australian VCs
A total of 96 VCs have been awarded to Australians for bravery in battle since the South African War 1899 -1902. Of these 59 are on permanent display to the public at the Australian War Memorial’s Hall of Valour.
Roy Inwood’s medal is the only VC out of the five won by South Australians during the 1914-18 War to remain in South Australia.
For details of VCs awarded to Australians see the book by Anthony Staunton, Victoria Cross. Australia’s Finest and the Battles They Fought (Hardie Grant Books, Prahran, 2005).
Victoria Cross medal awarded to Private Reginald Roy Inwood
“For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty during the advance to the third objective. He moved forward through our barrage alone to an enemy strong post and captured it, together with nine prisoners, killing several of the enemy. During the evening he volunteered for a special all-night patrol, which went out 600 yards in front of our line, and there, by his coolness and sound judgment obtained and sent back very valuable information as to the enemy movements. In the morning of the 21st September, Private Inwood located a machine-gun which was causing several casualties. He went out alone and bombed the gun and team, killing all but one whom he brought in as a prisoner with the gun.”
(London Gazette, 26 November 1917).
Want to Know More?
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Photographs sourced from the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, and the City of Adelaide Civic Collection.