Further Information
He was presented his VC, on Poona Racecourse, by Lord Frederick Roberts on 11 July 1881.
Collis was one of eight men whose VCs were forfeited. He was stripped of the medal on 18 November 1895 after being convicted of bigamy.
He was born in Cambridge on 19 April 1856. He enlisted in the Suffolk Regiment in World War I and died of a heart attack in Battersea hospital on 28 June 1918 aged 62.
At his funeral his coffin was draped with the Union Flag and borne on a gun carriage escorted by a military firing party. At Wandsworth Cemetery he was given full military honours and there was no mention of his crime or the forfeiture of the Victoria Cross. For 80 years he laid in an unmarked pauper's grave, with no headstone to acknowledge his act of bravery in the service of his country. On 22 May 1998 a short ceremony was held at Wandsworth Council's Magdalen Road Cemetery to mark the erection of a headstone, resplendent with the carving of his Victoria Cross.
On Collis' death his sister made a plea to King George to restore the decoration to her brother. The King was deeply touched and felt that once the medal had been awarded it should not be forfeited. His Private Secretary, Lord Stamfordham sent a letter on 26 July 1920 he expressed his views with some force. "The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold."
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