Harry Hampton

Harry HamptonVC (14 December 1870 – 2 November 1922) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Hampton was born in Crown Terrace, Richmond (then in Surrey and now in London) on 14 December 1870.^[1]

Hampton was 29 years old, and a sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, The King's (Liverpool) Regiment, British Army during the Second Boer War when the following deed took place on 21 August 1900 at Van Wyk's Vlei, South Africa, for which he was awarded the VC:

On the 21st August, 1900, at Van Wyk's Vlei, Sergeant Hampton, who was in command of a small party of Mounted Infantry, held an important position for some time against heavy odds, and when compelled to retire saw all his men into safety, and then, although he had himself been wounded in the head, supported Lance-Corporal Walsh, who was unable to walk, until the latter was again hit and apparently killed, Sergeant Hampton himself being again wounded a short time after.^[2]

He received the decoration from King Edward VII, in person, during an investiture at St James's Palace on 17 December 1901.^[3]

Hampton later achieved the rank of colour sergeant. He retired from the Army after the First World War and returned to the Richmond area, taking employment in the City of London as a commissionaire with a firm of solicitors. In 1919 whilst dismounting from a bus in Richmond his leg, injured during the Boer War, gave way. He continued to live at the family home of 151 Halliburton Road, St Margarets, Twickenham until his fatal accident in November 1922.

Hampton died in Twickenham on 2 November 1922.^[1] Although reported as having taken his own life by jumping in front of a train at Richmond rail station, he did in fact succumb to multiple injuries sustained from falling against a Shepperton train passing through St Margarets railway station in Twickenham. In the subsequent inquest there was no suggestion that he might have taken his own life, the opinion of the coroner being that a leg injured when he had fallen from a bus approximately two years before his death had given way as the Shepperton train passed through St Margarets station.

Su funeral se celebró en St Margarets , tras lo cual su ataúd fue trasladado en una cureña con escolta militar. Fue llevado desde St Margarets, cruzando el puente de Richmond , y al llegar frente al Ayuntamiento de Richmond , el alcalde, los concejales y una multitud de varios miles de personas se habían congregado para presentar sus respetos, muchas de las cuales siguieron la cureña hasta el cementerio de Richmond .

Está enterrado en el cementerio de Richmond, ^{[ 1 ]} pero durante más de 50 años su tumba permaneció sin marcar. En 1986, Ron Buddle, un oficial de la policía metropolitana e historiador de la Cruz Victoria , redescubrió la ubicación de la tumba y , con la ayuda financiera de la Asociación del Regimiento del Rey, erigió la lápida actual. Sin embargo, la fecha de fallecimiento que figuraba en la lápida, el 4 de febrero de 1920, era incorrecta. El error se corrigió cuando la tumba fue restaurada en 2008 como parte del programa "Adopta una tumba" del municipio londinense de Richmond upon Thames .

Se desconoce el paradero de su Cruz Victoria.

• Buzzell, Nora (1997). El registro de la Cruz Victoria , This England . Tercera edición, 352 págs. ISBN 0-906324-27-0
• Harvey, David (1999). Monumentos al coraje: lápidas y memoriales de la Cruz Victoria, vol. 2, 1917-1982. Kevin & Kay Patience. OCLC 59437300
• Uys, Ian (2000). Cruces Victoria de la Guerra Anglo-Bóer .

• Ubicación de la tumba y de la medalla de la Cruz Victoria (Surrey)
• Angloboerwar.com