Dr Noel Chavasse V.C. & Bar

Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse was the most highly decorated man of the First World War, being awarded the Victoria Cross twice. Only two other men have a VC and bar, Surgeon-Captain Arthur Martin-Leake won one in the Boer war and another in the Great War. Captain Charles Upham was twice awarded the VC in the Second World War, they both survived. Captain Chavasse's second VC was awarded posthumously.

The story of Noel Chavasse's life, and his family, are well worth reading about. The following extracts are from "Chavasse Double VC" by Ann Clayton.

The institution with which Noel became involved was the Holy Trinity Certified Industrial School for Boys, at 73-79 Grafton St, on the slopes running down to the Mersey... Here Noel could appreciate for the first time what it was like to live in these mean streets - Victorian slums of the worst kind, some of them, from whence the inmates of the institution came. Directed as often as not by the city magistrates to enter the industrial school, the boys were unruly, perhaps criminal, certainly heading for lives of squalid subsistence, unless the school could intervene and break the cycle. This is what the Governor, Mr Tom Robinson, and his wife the matron, were endeavouring to do. 

Noel's contribution was immediately important. In 1903 he was eighteen years old, athletic, articulate and inventive. As well as leading Bible-reading sessions and singsongs (he was an enthusiastic if not particularly expert pianist), he organised sports for the boys and accompanied them on their annual camps to Hightown, between Liverpool and Southport. Even when he was at university, he gave up part of every summer vacation to the needs of the Grafton Street boys.

At the end of the academic year in July 1909, Noel made the final break with Oxford... managing also to accompany 200 Grafton Street Boys on their annual month-long camp at Hightown. That summer the Industrial School's monthly record reported his contribution with enthusiasm:

We render to Mr Chavasse our heartiest thanks for the great help he was at Camp. Ever ready to organise all sorts of games, to assist in their being carried out to a most successful issue, and in a hundred ways, finding some means to add joy and happiness to our lads (Grafton St Industrial School Record July-Aug 1909)