John Kirk

He braved a besieged bungalow to rescue a threatened family.

John Kirk was born in Liverpool in July 1827. He enlisted in the 10th Regiment of Foot and served in the Punjab campaign of 1848-49, including the siege of Mooltan and the battle of Goojerat. He remained with the regiment in India during the following decade.

On 4 June 1857, during the uprising at Benares, Captain Brown, a regimental paymaster, and members of his family were trapped in a bungalow threatened by armed insurgents. Kirk joined Sergeant Major Rosamund of the 37th Bengal Native Infantry and William Gill of the Ludhiana Regiment in going to their assistance.

The three soldiers forced their way through the danger around the building, drove off attackers and helped bring the endangered family to safety. Kirk's conduct was subsequently recognized with the Victoria Cross. The award was announced on 20 January 1860, and he received it from Queen Victoria at Windsor on 9 November that year.

After leaving the Army, Kirk returned to Liverpool and worked as a labourer. His later circumstances were difficult. He suffered from tuberculosis and entered the workhouse, where he died on 31 August 1865, aged thirty-eight.

He was buried at Anfield Cemetery in a shared grave. The grave remained without an individual marker for more than a century before a commemorative headstone was provided in 1989. His military service had ranged from the Punjab campaign to the rescue at Benares, while his brief civilian life ended in poverty in the city where he had been born.

Official Victoria Cross citation

For daring gallantry at Benares, on the 4th of June, 1857, on the outbreak of the mutiny of the Native Troops at that station, in having volunteered to proceed with two Non-commissioned Officers to rescue Captain Brown, Pension Paymaster, and his family, who were surrounded by rebels in the compound of their house; and having, at the risk of his own life, succeeded in saving them.

The London Gazette of 20 January 1860, Numb. 22347, p. 179