A MEDAL awarded posthumously to a Tranmere-born World War One hero has sold for £220,000 at auction. 

The Victoria Cross (VC) was given to Lieutenant-Commander Edgar Christopher Cookson, of the Royal Navy, who was killed in 1915 while fighting the Turks in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).

Cookson was born in Cavendish Park, Tranmere, on December 13 1883 and was 31-years-old and a Lieutenant-Commander in the command of HMS Comet on the River Tigris, when his actions, on September 28 1915, during the advance on Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, earned him the VC.

The VC, which was estimated to fetch £180,000-£220,000, was awarded during the operations involving the Tigris Flotilla, where Cookson paid the ultimate price for his gallantry in the river gunboat Comet when, under a storm of point-blank fire, he leapt aboard a Turkish sailing vessel brandishing an axe.

A fellow officer later observed “there were more bullet holes in him than they cared to count.” The medal was bought by a private collector.

Mark Quayle, Medal Specialist and Associate Director of Noonans, who sold the item at their auction of Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, said: “The rarity of the award, and the repeated acts of gallantry, are all reflected in the price achieved on the day."

Edgar Christopher Cookson was born at Cavendish Park, Tranmere, Cheshire, in December 1883 and he entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet in Britannia in September 1897. His D.S.O. was sent to his mother in September 1915 and she received his VC from the King at Buckingham Palace on November 29 1916 - she was his only immediate relative since he was unmarried, and his father had died.

Cookson was buried in Amara War Cemetery, but the grave was subsequently destroyed, and his name is now among those listed on the cemetery wall. He is also commemorated in the UK with a plaque in Whitechurch Canonicorum in Dorset.