POIGNANTLY a bugler sounded The Last Post at the unveiling of a plaque in St Andrew’s Church, Medstead, on Sunday, July 15, to man who was born in the village and awarded the VC by Edward VII in the early 1900s.

The plaque was a gift from the Royal Marines to honour one of their comrades, General Lewis Halliday, who showed outstanding bravery during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion.

Among a packed congregation were representatives from the Royal Marines Museum, representatives of the Royal Marines Association, who presented four standards and the VC Trust.

Medstead Brownies also presented a standard and formed a guard of honour outside the entrance to the church. The ceremony also brought together 14 members of the Halliday family some of whom had never met each other.

After a moving service conducted by Cannon Ed Pruen, with the church choir leading the singing, Lt Reggie Turner, representing the Royal Marines, accompanied by Roger Halliday, Lewis Halliday’s grandson, and Cannon Pruen, unveiled the plaque.

A Royal Marine bugler sounded both The Last Post and Reveille, which is mainly associated with the First World War – but there were wars earlier in the century which produced heroes.

One was the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 – started by a Chinese secret organisation called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists.

It led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there.

The rebels, referred to by Westerners as Boxers because they performed physical exercises they believed would make them able to withstand bullets, killed foreigners and Chinese Christians or imprisoned them and destroyed foreign property.

From June to August 1900, the Boxers besieged the foreign district of Beijing (then called Peking), China’s capital, until an international force that included American troops subdued the uprising.

By the terms of the Boxer Protocol, which officially ended the rebellion in 1901, China agreed to pay more than $330 million in reparations and the war also ended the Qing dynasty, established in 1644, last of the great ruling families of China.

With his marine unit, the then Captain Halliday, was fighting the Boxers in Beijing who had broken into the Palace stables, and the marines were ordered to attack them.

As he approached the stables Captain Halliday was shot at point blank range He managed to kill four of the Boxers but with his shoulder half blown off and his lung punctured by bullets, he didn’t want to stop the attack, so told his men to go on without him and then walked, unaided, to the hospital.

For his bravery he received his VC from Edward VII at Marlborough House in 1901 and his citation was read at the church service.

There was also a presentation of the General’s life including archive newsreel film and, of course, a clip from the film ‘55 Days at Peking’, which tells the story of the Boxer Rebellion where the General won his VC.

After the service 80 guests enjoyed lunch in the church hall.