Auction Catalogue

25 September 2008

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 49

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25 September 2008

Hammer Price:
£290

Royal Humane Society, large silver medal (Ioanni Morum vit ob serv. dono dat Soc. Reg. Hvm. 1836) unmounted, edge bruise and cut to reverse, very fine £260-300

Ex Watters Collection; ref. Spink Exhibition 1985, No. 7.

‘On Thursday the 12th of May, about one o’clock, Mary Roberts, of No. 14 Church Street, Blackfriars Road, a child under two years and a half old, whilst playing, fell down the privy, a depth of seven feet, from which situation she moved a distance of nine or ten yards along the sewer, and from twenty to twenty-five minutes elapsed before she was [found] missing. On discovering her situation, John Morum, a mechanic in the employ of Messrs. Pontifex, of Shoe Lane, an inmate of the house, immediately descended, and after proceeding near the above distance, in a depth of excessively strong soil, varying from four to five feet, and at the imminent risk of his life (for just before reaching the child, he found a sudden increase in depth, and had he proceeded a yard further, destruction would have been inevitable), as the last step he took he sank upwards of two feet, and but for the circumstance of reaching the side of the sewer was he enabled to recover himself with the child in view. By an extraordinary effort, he succeeded in dragging it to him, and in about fifteen minutes rescued the child, in nearly a lifeless state, and he himself in extreme exhaustion; but by the application of warm baths and other restoratives, under the direction of our medical adviser, Mr Yeldham, of Great Surrey Street, the child is now restored to perfect health’. (Ref.
Acts of Gallantry, by Lambton Young, p. 57-58).