Thomas Egerton Hale

Thomas Egerton Hale VC, CB

Thomas Egerton Hale was born at Cook Pit Farm, Faddiley, near Nantwich, Cheshire, on 24 September 1832. Educated at Queen’s College, Birmingham, and King’s College London, he qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1854.

Hale entered the Army Medical Department on 14 December 1854 and was appointed assistant surgeon to the 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment of Foot, later the Royal Fusiliers. He soon accompanied the regiment to the Crimea, where he served in the trenches before Sebastopol.

On 8 September 1855, during the unsuccessful assault on the Great Redan, Hale remained with the dangerously wounded Captain H. M. Jones in the Fifth Parallel after the soldiers nearby had withdrawn. Together with Lieutenant William Hope, he attempted to rally the retreating men. Later that day, after the regiment had returned to the trenches, Hale cleared the most advanced sap of wounded soldiers and, assisted by Sergeant Charles Fisher, repeatedly ventured onto exposed ground under heavy Russian fire to carry casualties to safety.

For these actions, Hale was awarded the Victoria Cross. The award was announced in the London Gazette on 5 May 1857. Queen Victoria presented him with the Cross at the first Victoria Cross investiture in Hyde Park on 26 June 1857. He was one of 62 recipients decorated that day. The Fusilier Museum London⁠ reproduces his official citation.

Hale subsequently served in India during the Indian Rebellion. In the summer of 1857, he had medical charge of a field force commanded by Colonel Blunt and sent from Lahore to the Trans-Indus Frontier. The troops endured forced marches, extreme heat, disease and operations against fortified rebel positions. Hale later served at Cherat and was medical officer to the 2nd Punjab Infantry and European detachments during frontier operations in the Peshawar Hills between 1864 and 1866.

In 1869 he became medical officer to the 43rd Regiment of Foot and, in 1873, to the 94th Regiment of Foot. He retired from the Army in 1876 with the substantive medical rank of surgeon-major.

Hale married Emily Harriet Rowswell, whom he had met while stationed at Gibraltar. After retirement, he lived at Faddiley Lodge near Nantwich and became a Fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Horticultural Society. In 1906 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

Surgeon-Major Thomas Egerton Hale died near Nantwich on Christmas Day 1909, aged 77. He was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church at Acton, Cheshire. His medal group is preserved by the Museum of Military Medicine. Victoria Cross Online⁠ provides further biographical and burial details