Word doc - Life Saving Awards Research Society

Word doc - Life Saving Awards Research Society

Dix Noonan Webb, 25th September 2008.
This was the moment that our members had been waiting for – the sale of our late President’s
collection of life saving awards. Bill Fevyer’s outstanding collection of life saving awards is the finest
collection of its type ever to appear at auction, with the 231 lots selling for £185,825 (hammer price) in
front of a significant number of the Society’s members – all keen to acquire one or more examples for
their own collections.
The sheer size of the collection presented a problem with regard to reporting the auction in our
Journal as our usual format was to reproduce each lot with a description of the medals and the
lifesaving incident, plus of course the price realised. To follow the same format for Bill’s collection
would have filled practically all the Journal, or required it to be split over three Journals. An
alternative would have been to list the awards with the briefest of descriptions, but we felt this would
not do it justice, especially as the collection was well illustrated in the auctioneer’s catalogue.
Therefore, rather than try to emulate DNW’s catalogue we have decided to describe here the more
important and interesting items from the sale and urge those members who do not have a copy of the
catalogue to obtain one as a reference for the sale. To facilitate this, Messrs DNW have kindly made
available to LSARS a number of Auction catalogues which will be available to our members (see
Noticeboard for details).
The top price of £4,000 was paid for two groups; the modern Stanhope gold medal pair to Victor
Golding for rescuing a man after an explosion at a chemical works in Canning Town, London, in
August 1983 (lot 86), and the famous RNLI medal with second and third service clasps to Coxswain
Supt. Richard Roberts of the North Deal lifeboat, and exceptional old gentleman who died in 1933 at
the age of 95, having rescued some 485 lives (lot 101). (Roberts is one of the lifeboat coxswains who
appear on the Society’s logo) The successful bidder was a long time member of the Society whose
grandfather had himself been a RNLI coxswain.
The Stanhope gold medal (Lot 82) to Earnest Johnson, who saved the life of
his fellow worker in a deep trench in Manchester in December 1926 (lot 82)
sold, for £3,800
Lot 82
The rare Royal National Institute for the Preservation of Life
from Shipwreck gold medal to Revd. James Williams, of
Llanfairynghornwy, Anglesea, who rode his horse out into
the surf of Cemaes bay to throw a grappling hook over the
bowsprit of a fishing smack and ultimately rescue its crew of
five in March 1835 (lot 92), sold for £3,400.
lot 92
In addition to two Edward Medals, the sale opened with a fine selection of Sea Gallantry medals (lots
3-36), most of which were in groups, many containing additional awards for life saving such as Lloyds
Medals for Saving Life at Sea, Shipwrecked Fishermen & Mariners Royal Benevolent Society Medals,
Royal Humane Society Medals, RNLI Medals etc. Lot 35 was a remarkable SGM group containing in
addition to the SGM a further four life saving medals awarded to Able Seaman Robert Charles William
Brown, for his services in rescuing the crew of the Usworth in the North Atlantic in 1934.
Lot 35
There were two single SGMs worthy of mention; first the medal awarded to Joseph Hodson (lot 3) a
medal much coveted by a family member who had known of its existence in the Fevyer collection for
some years, imagine her delight in finally purchasing the medal for £900, second, the rare
‘Humanities’ type of SGM (lot 8) at £800 was a good buy for someone.
lot 3
lot 8
The next major section in the collection was the Royal Humane Society were some fifty lots were for
sale. Again, there were a mix of singles and medals in groups covering all of the various types of
RHS medal issued – including no less than four Stanhope gold medals. An early glazed example to
Richard Smith, in a contemporary case, caught the eye (lot 46) and sold for £460. Noteworthy was lot
47, a rare RHS / MGS (5 bars) to Lieut. Colonel Frederick English, Royal Engineers who received his
RHS medal for life saving in the Moray Firth. Also noteworthy were the RHS medals for the rescues
of the Warren Hastings (lot 72) and the Leinster (lot 81) which sold for £800 and £1,600 respectively.
lot 47
Lot 46
Lot 47
Lot 81
Apart from the medals mentioned earlier, the RNLI
section contained some stunning examples. There
was the very rare and historically important
RNIPLS Gold medal and gold boat (lot 94)
awarded to George Palmer, deputy chairman of
the Institute for some 25 years which sold for
£3,200. This was followed by another lifeboat
reverend (lot 97), this time the RNLI medal with
second service clasp to the Revd. Chancellor
Owen Lloyd Williams, the ‘Lifeboat Parson’ of
North Wales which was keenly bid up to £2,600.
lot 94
lot 97
For those interested in life saving awards to women, the RNLI medal to Gertrude Rose, one of the
four Prideaux-Brune sisters who with a friend rowed to the rescue of a drowning sailor, was again well
contested to reach £1,300.
The Society for the Protection of Life from Fire had a number of good examples in the sale, perhaps
the pick of the bunch being the 1st type medal (lot 115) awarded to William Jones who with others
rescued several individuals from death at a fire in Southampton on 7 th November 1837. A collector of
life saving awards for Hampshire rescues was pleased to have acquired this medal at £600.
lot 115
The Liverpool Shipwreck & Humane Society section of medals (lots 127151) came next and was eagerly awaited by those who collect to this
Society. Again, there were many fine examples for sale, but the very rare
oval type medal with five further award bars (lot
133) was a sought after item. It went to a long
time collector of these awards, more satisfying
as he had known of the medals existence in the
Fevyer collection for many years and he was at
last able to reunite it with Thomas’s large type
medal for an earlier rescue, at a cost of £1,300).
The gold marine medal with second bar (lot 136)
to Capt. Wm. H. Thompson was a very scarce
item and sold for £3,400) which was followed by
the 3rd type marine medal in silver to Coxswain
Charles Edward Fish (lot 138), who received this
medal for his famous rescue of the Indian Chief
by the Ramsgate Lifeboat in 1881. Sadly, Fish’s
medal group (SGM, gold RNLI plus others) was
scattered many years ago, nevertheless the
medal was sold for £460.
lot 136
lot 133
A selection of medal groups containing
Lloyds Medal for Bravery at Sea and
Lloyds Medal for Saving Life at Sea came
next. Again, there were a number of fine
examples to be sold and lot 164, the
medal group to Wm. James Kibblewhite,
RNR, who received a Lloyds Life Saving
Medal and a Humane Society of
Australasia medal, made the headlines,
selling at £2,300.
Lot 164
The Shipwrecked Fishermen & Mariner’s
Royal Benevolent Society Medals were next
to be sold and represented examples of the
various types of medal and suspender type
issued by the Society. Whilst this medal is
not as popular with collectors and most
medals sell for £250 to £350 the collection
contained a real gem – a gold medal. These
are excessively rare and only a very few
have appeared on the market. It is all the
more pleasing that this medal to Captain
Edward Salmund (lot 170) went to a
SFMRBS enthusiast for £2,500 – it made his
day!
lot 170
Lot 170
The remaining 140 lots in the collection
represented some 35 different life
saving organisations.
Again, it is difficult to pick out the best
where there were so many good
examples to be sold. However, there
were a number of rarities of which the
Ally Sloper Medal paired with a Royal
Society for the Protection of Life from
Fire Medal (lot 208) was hotly contested
to £1,400.
lot 208
Equally popular were the two identical medal groups of five (lots 206 and 207), each having the
Metropolitan Fire Brigade Bravery Medal with the former selling for £1,600 but the latter for £800 – is
there something here that we don’t know about?
lot 206
Medals associated with mining incidents have for some time commanded
a premium and this was again in evidence with the Order of Industrial
Heroism (lot 210) to Miner Samuel Jones and the OIH paired with a BEM
to Miner John Wm. Ainsley (lot 211) selling for £880 and £1,900
respectively. Not to be outdone, the rare Hamstead Colliery Medal in gold
awarded to W.D. Ross (lot 216) sold for £1,300.
lot 211
lot 216
Were there any bargains to be had? Well, generally the prices were as expected or in many cases,
significantly exceeding the estimates particularly where rare or desirable medals were sold. However,
there was one bargain – lot 191, a 1st type bronze medal for the Hundred of Salford Humane Society,
which isn’t the most popular of life saving awards, but – that small bronze medal for the 1st type medal
is very scarce – so for just £150 another collector left the auction a happy man.
A a copy of the DNW auction catalogue for the Fevyer Collection can be obtained for £5 (inc p&p)
from Kim Claxton (01547-530611 – email: [email protected]) If you don’t have a copy
we strongly recommend that you obtain one as a record of ‘probably the finest collection of life saving
awards to have come to auction.’
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