Medal collection could fetch £2m at auction

The collection includes a Victoria Cross that could fetch up to £260,000

A collection of medals covering 200 years of Naval history could fetch around £2m when they go to auction later this month.

The set of 250 medals will go under the hammer at Noonans Mayfair on 23 July.

The collection includes 10 medals that were awarded to Lt Cdr William Ewart Hiscock, of the Royal Navy, who was born in Dorchester, Dorset, in 1886.

His medals are estimated to fetch between £80,000 and £120,000.

Nimrod Dix, deputy chairman of Noonans, described how the controlled mining officer, serving at HMS St Angelo in Malta, dealt with 125 "incidents" at the height of the island's siege.

Lt Cdr Hiscock and his wife were killed in a bombing raid on Valetta in February 1942 - just a few days after it was announced that he had been awarded the George Cross.

King George VI presented the medal to one his daughters at Buckingham Palace on 23 June 1942.

Capt Ritchie was wounded eight times in 20 minutes

The medals were collected by Jason Pilalas, from Connecticut, who died last year, and served as an officer in the United States Navy, completing three tours of Vietnam.

The collection also includes a Victoria Cross won by Edinburgh-born Capt Henry Peel Ritchie, of the Royal Navy, for his command of HMS Goliath's steam pinnace at Dar-es-Salaam in east Africa on 28 November 1914.

Capt Ritchie, then 38, was wounded eight times in 20 minutes as he steered the pinnace to safety from the port, which was then under German rule.

His medal could fetch up to £260,000.