The gallantry of Bradford soldier Corporal Samuel Meekosha ensured his Victoria Cross smashed all expectations when it was sold at Sotheby's last night for £101,200.

Cpl Meekosha, pictured, was 22 and serving with the West Yorkshire Regiment when he earned the coveted medal for his actions on November 19, 1915.

Six of his platoon were killed, seven wounded and the rest buried. He took command, sent for help, and in spite of more shells falling within 20 yards of him, continued to dig out the wounded and buried men in full view and at close range from the enemy. His courage saved at least four lives.

The medal, which had been expected to fetch between £60,000 and £90,000, was bought by an anonymous bidder.

A Sotheby's spokesman said: "Bidding took around five or six minutes, there were two bidders in the room but the final winning bid had previously been left with the auctioneer.

"We are delighted with the price, it's an exceptional Victoria Cross with an early date and its price reflects its importance."

The medal was sold by Mr Meekosha's grand daughter, Joan Meekosha, who inherited it from her father Felix on his death last year.

But Mary Booth, Cpl Meekosha's daughter, claims that the medal should never have been sold.

"It was passed to Felix for safe keeping, and was then to be passed on to the regiment's museum. I had a verbal agreement with him on the same subject," she said.

"My brother changed his will 15 years ago and he never even told me. The first I knew about this was when I went to his funeral last August. I asked my sister-in-law 'what's happened to my father's medal?' but she was very non-committal about it."

Mrs Meekosha, 83, who lives in Nottingham said the medal had been left to her daughter in her husband's will and that they were carrying out his wishes by selling it.

But Mary Booth feels that her father would have been "absolutely appalled" that his medal had been sold.

"To me it's like a funeral taking place. It's highly immoral to sell something like that, he risked his life for it," she said.

"I feel like they are putting my father on sale, they have no respect for him. I've cut myself off completely from them, I just don't want anything to do with them."

Mrs Booth was surprised that the medal had fetched such a high price.

"I'm pleased to think my father's medal was so valued but I still think it should've gone to a museum," she said.

Bradford historian Alan Petcher says that the medal would most likely have been bought as an investment. "The VC is the highest award that you can get in the British Army, they're the most prized but are beyond the price range of normal medal collectors."

Mr Petcher said Cpl Meekosha changed his name when he married his second wife, Mary Constance Ingham.

"I've done a lot of research into Meekosha and for some unknown reason he took his wife's surname," he said.

Sotheby's medal specialist, James Morton, thinks he knows why Cpl Meekosha changed his name.

"He was a very modest man who was quite dismissive of the act that earned him the VC," he said.

"He joined up for the Second World War and because of his unusual name people kept asking him 'Aren't you that chap that won the VC?' And in a bid to stop the questions he changed his name by deed poll in 1941 or 1942."

The Victoria Cross was instituted by Royal Warrant in 1856, but was made retrospective to the Autumn of 1854 to cover the Crimean War.

The award is presented for actions 'in the presence of the enemy' and has been awarded 1,354 times.

The medals are still made by London jewellers Hancocks & Co from the bronze of Chinese cannons captured from the Russians at the Siege of Sebastopol.