STRENUOUS efforts are underway for a lasting memorial to a soldier killed almost a century ago who remains Herefordshire’s only county-born recipient of this country’s highest award for bravery.

Lance Corporal Allan Leonard Lewis, a 23-year-old carpenter’s son from Whitney-on-Wye, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his extraordinary acts of courage on the frontline during the final months of the First World War which cost him his life.

Next year marks the100th anniversary of his death and his descendants, supported by Royal British Legion members, military historians and friends are pressing for a fitting memorial to him in Hereford.

Lance Corporal Lewis’s name was carved by his father on the war memorial plaque at Whitney-on-Wye church, and he is also remembered at Brilley church. As part of a nationwide effort to commemorate those awarded the VC - the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces - a paving stone is to be laid in Hereford Cathedral in his memory.

But his great-niece, Dawn Lewis said that is not enough.

“He is still the only Herefordshire-born VC in the county to date and I feel he deserves better recognition,” she added.

With support from others, she is mounting a campaign to raise £50,000 for a life-size bronze statue of her great-uncle to stand in Hereford. Already, sculptor Jemma Pearson, who crafted the statue to Sir Edward Elgar in Cathedral Close, has agreed to take on the commission.

“Jemma is on standby and as soon as we have got pledges we are hopeful the statue could be installed in a prominent position,” she said

Her calls are backed by RBL Herefordshire president Major Alan Harrhy and by Gareth Pugh and Kelvin Jenkins.

“It’s really important to get this money together for a lasting memorial,” added Ms Lewis. “Lance Corporal Lewis should be recognised.”

His great-niece grew up keenly aware of her brave forebear, who enlisted with the 6th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment. On 18 September 1918 at Rossnoy in France, her great-uncle was in command of a section held up by intense gun fire.

The young soldier, who left his job with the Great Western Railway to enlist, spotted two guns encroaching upon his men and crawled forward alone to bomb them, before forcing other attackers to surrender by rifle fire. Three days later, he rushed his company through the enemy barrage, but was killed while getting his men under cover from heavy machine-gun fire.

In his distress, his father later carved his son’s initials as A.E. instead of A.L. on the church plaque.

After the VC was presented to the family, it was later inherited by Dawn’s grandfather. “My great-grandmother said she lost her son for this medal so it was blood money, she always said please make sure it is never sold.”

Sadly, the medal passed to the beneficiary of a relative’s estate, so descendants have been unable to grant the soldier’s mother’s final wish to have the VC placed in a museum