Farrier Major Michael ‘Spud’ Murphy – the only Victoria Cross winner buried in Darlington – was caught stealing 6 bushels of oats and 12lbs of hay in Aldershot. He was stripped of his rank and pension, sentenced to nine months’ hard labour, and his family was made homeless.
Murphy, from Tipperary, won his VC on 15 April 1858, during the Indian Mutiny when, despite sustaining five serious injuries, he killed at least five attackers while protecting the body of an officer. He rose through the ranks of the Military Train – the army’s transport division – until he was caught supplementing his meagre pay by allowing a sack of oats and a barrowful of hay to leave the barracks. ‘For God’s sake, look it over this time,’ he shouted at his court martial. ‘It will ruin me.’
The authorities refused. They ruined him. They even ordered he forfeit his VC. But when Sir Henry Havelock-Allan of Blackwell Grange, himself a veteran of the Indian Mutiny, heard of the case, he took pity on Murphy and offered him employment as a labourer in Darlington. When the VC winner died in Vulcan Street on 4 April 1893, Sir Henry followed his coffin to North Cemetery and paid for his headstone.
In 1920, George V restored Murphy’s VC, saying that it was awarded for outstanding split-second valour, not a lifetime of good behaviour.
(‘Memories’, The Northern Echo, 2004)