Private Walter Cook VC

Walter Cook was born in Cripplegate, London in 1834. Cook and another private, Duncan Millar, won Victoria Crosses for a brave action in the Indian Mutiny in which a small number of men from the 42nd Highlanders fought off an attack by 2,000 mutineers at Maylah Ghat on the river Sarda, the border between Oude and Rohilcund. On 15 Jan 1859 Captain Lawson and 37 men fought from sunrise to sunset causing the death of three sergeants and the wounding of the captain. Cook and Millar took charge of the company and 'displayed a courage, coolness and discipline which was the admiration of all who witnessed it.' Walter Cook's VC was gazetted on 18 June 1859. He unfortunately died a few years later, c1864, when he drowned in the river Ravi in the Punjab.

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