Victoria Cross: Century-old footage of Hull WW1 hero restored

Film footage of a soldier receiving his Victoria Cross from King George V in 1917 has been restored ahead of Remembrance Day.

Pte Jack Cunningham, from Hull, was awarded the medal for bravery during an attack on a German trench in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

The film was restored after a relative of Pte Cunningham donated the footage to the York Army Museum.

Curator Wg Cdr Alan Bartlett described it as "a piece of social history".

Pte Cunningham was from a Hull travelling family and enlisted in the East Yorkshire Regiment at the age of 17 when World War One began in 1914.

According to the citation, the teenage soldier was awarded the Victoria Cross for "magnificent" conduct on 13 November 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Ancre.

"Pte Cunningham went with a bombing section up a communication trench where much opposition was met and all the rest of the section were either killed or wounded," the dispatch said.

"Collecting all the bombs from the casualties, Pte Cunningham went on alone and when he had used up all the bombs he had, he returned for a fresh supply and again went up the communication trench where he met a party of 10 Germans. He killed all 10 and cleared the trench up to the new line."

The footage shows him receiving his award alongside 350 others at a ceremony in Hyde Park in London.

The film will go on display at the York Army Museum alongside his medal.

Wg Cdr Bartlett said he had been "surprised" to be offered the footage by a nephew of Pte Cunningham.

"After some discussion we decided to take the reel of film on loan and see if it could be restored and copied," he said.

"The result is a piece of social history."

After being seriously injured in the latter part of the war Pte Cunningham was demobilised in 1919 and returned to a hero's welcome in Hull, where he married and resumed the family tradition of working as a hawker.

He died in 1941 at the age of 43 after being ill for some time due to his wounds sustained during the war.

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