Henry Curtis (VC)

He crossed open ground under fire to carry a wounded man out

Henry Curtis was born at Romsey, Hampshire, on 21 December 1822. His father was a carpenter. He entered the Royal Navy in 1841 and served in vessels including HMS Rodney and HMS Ringdove before joining the Naval Brigade in the Crimea. By the summer of 1855 he was a boatswain's mate among the sailors serving ashore before Sebastopol.

The British assault on the Redan on 18 June ended with wounded men stranded outside the defences. A soldier of the 57th Regiment, wounded in both legs, sat up and called for help. He was roughly seventy yards from shelter, across ground still exposed to enemy fire.

Curtis left the battery works with Lieutenant Henry James Raby and fellow seaman John Taylor. They crossed the open ground and carried the soldier back. Their action required them to move toward the defended position after the assault had failed, then return burdened with a casualty. Each of the three received the Victoria Cross for the rescue.

After the Crimean War Curtis transferred to the Coast Guard. In February 1856 he married Maria Morley at Alverstoke, and they raised a family. His award appeared in the first Victoria Cross Gazette in February 1857. He attended the first investiture in Hyde Park on 26 June and received the cross directly from Queen Victoria.

Curtis completed his naval career in 1864. He subsequently worked as a quartermaster aboard a cross-Channel steamer sailing from Southampton, continuing a civilian working life at sea. He settled at Portsea, where he died on 23 November 1896. He was buried in Kingston Cemetery, Portsmouth. A new headstone was placed over his grave a century later, commemorating a rescue shared with two fellow naval recipients.