Victoria Cross: A. K. Wilson and W. T. Marshall

ARTHUR KNYVET WILSON

Captain, Royal Navy; attached Naval Brigade

Born: 4 March 1842, Swaffham, Norfolk
Died: 25 May 1921, Swaffham, Norfolk

Citation: This Officer, on the staff of Rear-Admiral Sir William Hewett, at the Battle of El-Teb, on the 29th February [1884] attached himself during the advance to the right half battery, Naval Brigade, in the place of Lieutenant Royds, R.N., mortally wounded.
As the troops closed on the enemy's Krupp battery the Arabs charged out on the corner of the square and on the detachment who were dragging the Gardner gun. Captain Wilson then sprang to the front and engaged in single combat with some of the enemy, thus protecting his detachment till some men of the York and Lancaster Regiment came to his assistance with their bayonets. But for the action of this Officer Sir Redvers Buller thinks that one or more of his detachment must have been speared.
Captain Wilson was wounded but remained with the half battery during the day.

[London Gazette issue 25356 dated 21 May 1884, published 21 May 1884.]


Notes: He was Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Wilson VC GCB OM GCVO at the time of his death.
The two battles of El Teb (4 Feb 1884 and 29 Feb 1884) were fought in the Sudan as part of the campaign against the followers of the Mahdi.
A Gardner gun was an early type of crank-operated machine gun.



WILLIAM THOMAS MARSHALL

Quartermaster-Sergeant, 19th Hussars

Born: 5 December 1854, Newark, Nottinghamshire
Died: 11 September 1920, Kirkcaldy, Fife

Citation: For his conspicuous bravery during the Cavalry charge at El-Teb, on 29th February last, in bringing Lieutenant-Colonel Barrow, 19th Hussars, out of action. That officer having been severely wounded, and his horse killed, was on the ground surrounded by the enemy, when Quartermaster-Sergeant Marshall, who stayed behind with him, seized his hand and dragged him through the enemy back to the regiment. Had Lieutenant-Colonel Barrow been left behind he must have been killed.

[London Gazette issue 25356 dated 21 May 1884, published 21 May 1884.]