The R.N.I.P.L.S. Silver Medal awarded to ‘Big Tom’ Brown of Cresswell, Northumberland, for his outstanding rescue of six Danish seamen in conditions of great danger; he was later appointed Coxswain of Cresswell’s first lifeboat and received a ‘Second Service’ clasp in recognition of his saving more than 30 lives over a period of 15 years

Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, G.IV.R., silver (Thomas Brown. Voted 3d. Jan 1861.) with uniface double-dolphin suspension, edge bruising, good very fine £400-£500

‘On 23 November 1860 the schooner Julius of Aalborg, Denmark, was wrecked on the Broad Carr Rocks (Broad Skear) off the Northumberland coast north of Newbiggin. The rocks were submerged by the incoming tide. She sank immediately and her crew could be seen in the rigging with her masts bending to near breaking point. Mr. Brown decided to attempt a rescue with his three sons, using his largest coble on which he had been forced to make temporary repairs to a hole which had been made by a fractious horse. Judging the right moment, he launched and came alongside the schooner in spite of difficult conditions. The crew of six were all saved although two broke their legs in jumping from the rigging. At the moment of rescue, a wave struck the wreck which broke up but, with great skill, Mr. Brown kept his own boat clear of the flying masts.’ (Lifeboat Gallantry, by Barry Cox, refers).

Second Service clasp voted 13 February, 1890:
‘Awarded to Coxswain Brown on his resignation as Coxswain, a post he had held for 15 years since the station was established. In that period the lifeboat had saved 33 lives from various wrecks. Services included those to the s.s. Gustaf (1876), the brig Swift (1882) and the schooner Swift (1886). Prior to the establishment of the station, Thomas Brown (big Tom) had been prominent in saving life and had been awarded the silver medal on 3 January 1861 for a shore boat rescue from the schooner Julius on 23 November 1860.’ (Ibid)

‘Big Tom’ Brown was born in the village of Cresswell, Northumberland, in 1817 and followed in the family fishing tradition from a young age. The Brown family have a celebrated place in the history of the small fishing village of Cresswell, not least for the assistance rendered by them across several generations to those in peril on the sea. An article published in The Lifeboat magazine in 1922 noted ‘Over 90 per cent of the villagers are named Brown, and from time immemorial they have been renowned for their hardihood and giant stature. In the days of the sailing ships many traders making to and from the busy Tyne were cast ashore here, and many gallant rescues have been performed by the men and women of Cresswell. The village has been the nursery of many daring seamen, for its fisher-folk have been trained in courage, resource and knowledge of the sea by the hard and dangerous conditions under which they gain their livelihood.’

Contemporary reports of the first rescue for which Big Tom Brown was recognised record that the circumstances were particularly fraught. The cries of the crew of the wrecked schooner were audible to the crowd gathered along the shore, but until Tom Brown, his elder son (also Thomas) and his brother (James) stepped forward the fierce seas had discouraged any attempt at rescue. The assistance of a passing carter and his mare was secured to pull Brown’s boat to the water’s edge, where the horse was so startled by the violence of the waves that it lashed out and staved in the bow of the boat below the water-line. Brown took off his coat, stuffed it into the hole and told his youngest son “Sit against that”; so hazardous did the enterprise appear that the boy was replaced by Brown’s nephew John Storey, who could be seen baling hard as his companions rowed into the teeth of the easterly gale.

The events which led to the establishment of a lifeboat station at Cresswell were also closely related to a tragedy suffered by the Brown family. In March 1874, Big Tom's brother James (who had accompanied him in the 1860 rescue) and his three sons were returning to Cresswell after a fishing trip. Their boat was in sight of land when a heavy squall capsized it; all 4 drowned. The event was witnessed by Tom Brown himself, who attempted to reach one who could be seen clinging to the upturned boat for a while. As he later recounted, ‘I tried to get to him, but our boat was filled with water, and I could not. After I had saved so many strange men’s lives, so many foreigners as well as English, to think that I could not get to my own. It was hard.’

Big Tom Brown was the natural choice for coxswain when the Institution’s lifeboat ‘Old Potter’ arrived the following year; when he relinquished the post fifteen years later, he was succeeded by his son Adam. Such was the esteem in which he was held that in 1899 a fund was established, with the object of ensuring the veteran lifeboatman’s comfortable retirement. He died at Hauxley in 1901.