A COLLECTION of medals paying tribute to members of the Chavasse family who served with distinction in the First World War has gone on display.

The collection of the family’s war medals has been unveiled at St Peter’s College, which was founded in 1929 by Captain Noel Chavasse’s father, Francis Chavasse, a former Bishop of Liverpool.

In August a paving stone in honour of Oxford-born Noel Chavasse, the only person awarded the Victoria Cross twice in the war, was officially unveiled in front of St Peter’s College in New Inn Hall Street.

A ceremony was also held on Armistice Day at his old school, Magdalen College School, to unveil a new paving stone depicting the two VCs he was awarded.

Noel’s identical twin brother Christopher Chavasse, who had also served in the First World War, was the college’s first master.

Christopher Chavasse’s grandson Peter Chavasse, from Wheatley, attended the ceremony at the college on Wednesday with son James, 13 and the Rt Rev James Jones, former Bishop of Liverpool, gave a talk on faith in the trenches of the First World War.

Mr Chavasse said: “It’s fabulous that this collection of family medals have been brought together in this way and people can see what a remarkable set of siblings they were.”

College archivist Richard Allen said more than 100 people attended the ceremony and added the medals were now on permanent display.

Of four brothers who served, two were killed – Aidan on July 4, 1917 and Noel on August 4, 1917.

Captain Noel Chavasse, right, was attached to to the Liverpool Scottish Regiment.

He received the Victoria Cross twice for attending to the wounded despite being under heavy fire, and suffered fatal wounds on the second occasion at the Battle of Passchendaele.

Christopher Chavasse bequeathed his medals, and those won by his brother, to the college following his retirement as master in 1939.

They were kept in a bank vault until the early 1980s, when they were given to the Imperial War Museum on long-term loan.

In 2009 Lord Ashcroft bought Noel Chavasse’s medals from St Peter’s College and these remain at the Imperial War Museum, with a VC replica on show at the college.

The college chapel is the place where all seven Chavasse children – Noel, Christopher, Francis, Aidan, May, Marjorie and Dorothea – were baptised.