Published in the Daily Express on 30 September 2025.
As the gallery containing the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses closes, Lord Ashcroft mourns the short-sighted move.
First the bad news. The gallery bearing my name and displaying the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses closes today [Sept 30]. The decision by the Imperial War Museum in London has left me dismayed and angry. I can assure anyone, from my fond memories of 15 years ago, that I got considerably more pleasure from the opening of the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, a duty carried out by the Princess Royal, than I have done from seeing the efforts of nearly 40 years of my work brought to an end – if only temporarily.
For I have spent the second half my life building up my collection of VCs, some 230 to date, and a smaller collection of George Crosses. The VC and the GC are Britain and the Commonwealth’s most prestigious decorations for gallantry and I had hoped my collection would remain at the IWM until long after I met my maker.
Secondly, the good news. I am currently working, in the short and long term, on a number of new and exciting ways of promoting my various medal collections. These include not just the VCs and GCs of which I am the humble custodian but also my collection of Special Forces decorations and medals for gallantry in the air.
Over the coming days, my VC and GC collection will go under lock and key in a vault. But I am vigorously exploring options to enable these wonderful decorations to go back on public display sooner rather than later. Furthermore, several friends visiting the gallery in recent days tell me that it has been packed. So I am delighted that so many people have taken the opportunity to see this unique medal collection for one last time.
As the IWM becomes increasingly woke (it is now widely known as the “Imperial Woke Museum”), I wish that it could follow the lead of the Daily Express which, in recent months, could not have done more to support our military veterans and to highlight valour. I am thinking, in particular, of the paper’s support for public funding so that D-Day veterans could – by travelling to France – attend the most recent anniversary of the June 6 ,1944, landings. Indeed, I cannot think of any media organisation that has done more to support this “greatest generation”.
My VC and GC collection is valued at around £70million and I had made arrangements to gift it to the IWM when I died. All that changed earlier this year when I discovered, through an intermediary, that the IWM had decided to close the Lord Ashcroft Gallery. Initially, it was due to shut down at the end of May this year but I “persuaded” the IWM, by threatening legal action, to keep the gallery open for the full term of the loan agreement – until the end of September.
Today is a sad day but also the start of a new chapter. As Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States, put it: “Out of adversity comes opportunity.”
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