Well done the British Museum

[John A Silkstone]

I read today that the double VC and other war medals belonging to New Zealander Charles Upham have been purchased by the Imperial War Museum. Once they won the bid they immediately donated the medals back to New Zealand for safe keeping.

Therefore the medals never left New Zealand. The family of Charles Upham were under pressures to sell the medals to the highest bidder [subsequently banned by the NZ Government]. Bids had been made and including one from a private collector in the UK for the sum of one million pounds!

The action of the Imperial War Museum has prevented the medals from falling into private hands for at least the next 999 years.

Silky

 

[Bombardier]

Yes well done indeed

 

[Reloader]

Good effort! That's as it should be. sal;

 

[IronFootedBstrd]

Bloody right! Good on the British Museum.

Bravo to them for seeing fit to leave them in New Zealand too...its right that we should acknowledge as much as we can the enormous contribution made by the Empire & the Commonwealth. That 'acknowledgement' would have been lessened had the Museum brought them back to London on the basis that they had paid for them.