Great War Portraits

Just a week after the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 Private Sidney Godley, of the Royal Fusiliers, single-handedly held off six divisions of the German Army as they pursued the vastly outnumbered British Expeditionary Force across northern France.
 
Despite being blown up and shot in the head, Private Godley manned a machine gun guarding the vital Nimy bridge across the Mons-Condé canal, giving his comrades vital hours to escape. Eventually, seriously wounded and out of ammunition, he dismantled his machine gun and threw the pieces in the canal before trying to crawl away.
 
When King George V heard of his valour he decided to award the 25-year-old private the first Victoria Cross of the war, Britain’s highest award for bravery.
 
His medal group has now been sold by his descendants for £276,000 at Spinks.
 
For weeks during the Battle of Mons it was believed that Godley had been killed alongside Lieutenant Maurice Dease, his commanding officer, who also volunteered to stay behind to man the machine gun. Dease died at the start of the action and was also awarded the VC.
 
But Godley was in a German field hospital, where he was treated for his injuries. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner and finally received his medal in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in 1919.
 
After the war on 2 August 1919, Godley married Ellen Eliza Norman. He worked as a school caretaker in Tower Hamlets, London. He died on 29 June 1957. He was buried with full military honours in Loughton Cemetery, Essex.