Orders, Decorations and Medals

Royal Humane Society, large silver medal (successful) (Revd. R. P. Clemenger vit ob serv. d.d. Soc. Reg. Hvm. 21 Novr. 1854) unmounted, good very fine £260-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Life Saving Awards formed by The Late W.H. Fevyer.

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Ref. Spink Exhibition No.8.

‘On Tuesday, 21st November 1854, a boy, named Edward Barker, accidently fell into the Regent’s Canal, at Agar Town, and would in all probability have been drowned but for the gallant and humane conduct of the Rev. R. P. Clemenger, M.A., who was making a house-to-house visitation, as incumbent of that district, when his attention was called to the fact that somebody had fallen into the canal. He hastened to the spot, and getting over a high wall on to the towing-path, plunged into the water, and swam towards a moving substance, which he afterwards discovered to be a child, seven years old; he then took hold of it and swam to the opposite shore, where its mother and several persons were assembled, who snatched the boy out of his arms, and began to hold him up by the legs, head downward. Knowing that such treatment was improper, he told them to hold him head upwards, and to carry him home, and as he saw they did not know what to do properly, he resolved to stay with the boy until medical aid should arrive; and having applied remedies which led to his restoration, he was on the point of returning home to divest himself of his wet clothes, when he learnt, for the first time, that the father of the child was still missing, he having plunged into the canal before his arrival to eandeavour to rescue his child. Had they told him this when he first picked up the boy, he might, perhaps, have been able to do something towards saving him also, but as he had been so long in his wet clothes, and cramped with cold, he was obliged, though reluctantly, to run home as fast as he could. However, he saw a barge close to the spot, and men busily engaged in recovering the man’s body’. (Ref. R.H.S. Case No. 15,617; Acts of Gallantry, p. 200-201).

Medallion as produced by Silvester/Warrington from the Pistrucci dies, c.1839-55; as for the 2nd type medal but without the name ‘Pistrucci’ on the obverse. New dies were produced by Warrington, being near exact copies of those by Pistrucci, in 1855.