Second Anglo-Afghan War Victoria Cross Recipient. He received the award from Lord Frederick Roberts at Poona, India on July 11, 1881 for his actions as a gunner in the Royal Horse Artillery of the British Artillery on July 28, 1880 at Maiwand, Afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. He enlisted in the British Army in 1872 with the 32nd Regiment and later the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. After being transferred to the Royal Horse Artillery, he was sent to Afghanistan during the Second Anglo-Afghan War, during which he won the Victoria Cross for gallantry. In 1881 he was discharged from the British Army and joined the Bombay, India police force, achieving the rank of inspector. Three years later he returned to England and in 1887 he reenlisted in the Army with the Suffolk Regiment and returned to British India the following year. In 1891 he became ill with rheumatic fever and was sent back to England. In 1895 he was convicted of bigamy (he previously had a wife in India and married another woman in in England in 1893) and was stripped of his Victoria Cross, which he had previously pawned after falling on hard times. After serving his prison sentence, he worked odd jobs but when World War I broke out in July 1914, he reenlisted in the Suffolk Regiment as a drill instructor. His health soon began to decline and he was medically discharged in August 1917. He died from a heart attack at the age of 62 and was buried in an unmarked grave for 80 years until May 1998 when a headstone was erected in his honor of winning the Victoria Cross. In June 1920, his sister petitioned the Military Secretary at the British War Office to restore his Victoria Cross, which was denied in July. However, two months later on a further matter the private secretary to the British King George V, Lord Stamfordham, advised that the King supported the name of Gunner Collis being inscribed with those of other recipients on the memorial at St George's Garrison Church, Woolwich, London, commemorating the Victoria Cross recipients of the in Royal Artillery and Indian Artillery. His Victoria Cross citation reads: "For conspicuous bravery during the retreat from Maiwand to Kandahar when the officer commanding the battery was endeavouring to bring in a limber with wounded men under a cross-fire, in running forward and drawing the enemy's fire on himself, thus taking off their attention from the limber." In addition to the Victoria Cross, he also received the Afghanistan Medal (1878-80). His Victoria Cross and Afghanistan Medal are part of the Lord Ashcroft Collection of the British Imperial War Museum in London, England.