Victoria Cross and Hardham Cup come together for first time in over 100 years

• By NZ Remembrance Army Media Release/Club Rugby

In a first for New Zealand rugby, the military’s highest award the original Victoria Cross (VC) won by William James Hardham and Wellington club rugby’s prestigious Hardham Cup are being displayed together, offering a unique historical convergence underscoring his dual legacy.

The two historic items have come together for the first time as part of the Petone Rugby Football Club’s (RFC), 140th anniversary (1885 -2025) celebrations.

Hardham was a member of the Petone club.

As part of the celebrations the New Zealand Remembrance Army (NZRA), in collaboration with the United Services Medals Trust and New Zealand Defence Force’s – Queen Alexandra’s Mounted Rifles, presented a set of miniature replicas of Hardham’s military medals to Petone RFC.

The event will also feature his original VC, on loan from the Waiouru Museum and brought to the club by his family.

An announcement by the WRFU is imminent on the future of the Hardham Cup.

Queens Alexandras Mounted Rifles will mount a guard at the kick off at the Petone Rec  in the Swindale Shield sixth round fixture for the Bill Brien Challenge Shield and the Darren Larsen Cup between Petone and Wainuiomata at 2.45pm, and feature in the post-match presentations at 530pm. This is the unit Hardham served with.

“We are excited to bring together the worlds of rugby and military history in celebration of a figure who excelled in both arenas,” says Simon Strombom, Managing Director of NZRA.

“Hardham was a club legend in its early days and was the only New Zealander awarded a Victoria Cross during the South African War (1899-1902).

“He was also the first New Zealand born person to receive the award and only solider from the Mounted Rifles to ever receive the award.”

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More about Hardham in the previously published Pioneers profile on this website:

Pioneers of Rugby in Wellington: Pioneers of Rugby in Wellington: 021 Major William James Hardham, VC

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William James Hardham, was born in Wellington in 1876, who distinguished himself through an act of conspicuous bravery in action.

Posted to the 4^th Contingent in 1900, he was on a patrol in the South African Transvaal when it was ambushed.

He rode his horse to the rescue of a wounded soldier while under heavy fire and for this he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Returning to civilian life after the war, he played representative rugby for Petone Rugby Club and Wellington Provincial Team. He also continued to serve in the militia (like today’s Territorials).

A stalwart of the Petone rugby club, Hardham played more than 50 matches for Wellington. The ‘fast dashing forward, full of go from kick-off to cease play’ played in Wellington’s successful 1904 challenge against Auckland for the then new Ranfurly Shield.

When the First World War began in 1914, Hardham served as a captain in the Wellington Mounted Rifles Regiment of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in Egypt and at Gallipoli, where he was severely wounded in 1915.  After recovering, he re-enlisted and returned to active service in Palestine in 1918.

At war’s end he returned once again to civilian life, where he worked for the Dominion (now the Post) newspaper and later the Public Works Department as well as being involved in veterans’ affairs helping to organise Wellington’s annual Anzac Day celebrations.

On return to the Petone RFC he became increasingly involved in rugby administration with the Wellington Rugby Football Union.

William Hardham contracted malaria while serving in Palestine, as a result he died in Wellington on 13 April 1928, aged 51. He is the only VC recipient to be laid to rest in the Karori Soldiers’ Cemetery.

The trophy that bears his name was donated to the Wellington RFU for competition in his honour in 1939. It has been fully restored for the day.