New Victoria Cross Display
in Woking's Story

During his visit to The Lightbox on Thursday 28 February, The Duke of Kent became one of the first people to see a new display in Woking’s Story. It has been created in partnership with the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment Museum to commemorate the centenary of the formation of the Territorial Army in 1908.

The exhibit tells the story of four individuals to have been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest ranking military honour.

The Victoria Cross

The medal was introduced by Queen Victoria during the Crimean War in 1857, to recognise soldiers who had committed exceptional acts of bravery. Since then it has been awarded to eighteen members of the combined Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiments.

The four soldiers whose stories are told in Woking’s Story were all Territorial Army soldiers or serving with a Territorial Battalion. One of them, Private Jack Harvey saved his company from heavy causalities in the trenches at the age of 27, in 1918. In his act of bravery he “singlehandedly rushed an enemy dug-out which contained thirty-seven of the enemy and compelled them to surrender.”

A modern day hero

On hand to show The Duke of Kent the new display was a modern day hero, Lance Corporal Johnson Gideon Beharry VC from The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. The Queens Royal Surrey Regiment became part of The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment in 1990.

LCpl Beharry is the youngest and most recent living recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was awarded the medal for two individual acts of great heroism in Iraq in 2004. The driver of a Warrior armoured vehicle, he twice saved the lives of his comrades and crewmates by singlehandedly leading them to safety under heavy enemy fire.

The Queens Royal Surrey Regiment Museum

The Queens Royal Surrey Regiment Museum is based at Clandon house, a National Trust property in Clandon Park, Guildford. Because the house is only open for some of the year, The Lightbox have offered the Museum permanent display space in Woking's Story.

The Queens Royal Surrey Regiment Museum visiting information:

Open March - end of October
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Sundays & Bank Holidays
12 - 5 pm