Orders, Decorations and Medals

Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society, Marine Medal, 2nd type oval medal with ‘Liver Bird’ suspension, silver, reverse inscribed, ‘Robert Thomas, 28 July 1873’, edge additionally inscribed, ‘For courage and humanity in saving life from drowning on several occasions’, 5 clasps, For Saving Life 21 July 1871, For Saving Life- April 1 1873; For Saving Life April 19 1875; For Saving Life Aug. 5 1890; For Saving Life 7 Oct. 1905, with silver buckle on ribbon, edge bruising, very fine £1200-1500

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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Ex Dawson Collection. Ref. Spink Exhibition 1985, No. 127.

‘To Robert Thomas, seaman, Woodside Ferry, a Silver Clasp to his medal, for jumping overboard from the steamer Lancashire on the night of 28th July 1873, and rescuing a man who had fallen overboard from the landing stage while under the influence of drink, and had drifted some distance up the river. Thomas wears the Society’s Medal, and has been instrumental in saving life on several occasions, recently at the wreck of the S.S. Atlantic” (Ref. Extract from the 34th Annual Report, year ended 1st July 1873).

‘Several letters have been received from Halifax, N.S., showing that Quartermaster Robert Thomas, after landing from the wreck of S.S. Atlantic, had returned to the scene of the disaster, and at the risk of his life had conveyed a rope to a rock, by which means 50 or 60 persons were saved, he was awarded a Silver Clasp to his medal’ (Ref. Extract from the 35th Annual Report, year ended 1st July 1874).

‘Also, to Robert Thomas, now a lightship seaman, for having rescued a seaman who had fallen overboard from the buoy tender of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board on 19th April 1875, a Silver Clasp. Thomas, in jumping overboard, fell onto the angle iron edge of the Bell Buoy and received severe internal injuries, which disabled him from duty for several weeks’ (Ref. Society records).

‘A Silver Clasp to his Medal and a Pecuniary Award to Robert Thomas, keeper of the Rock Lighthouse, for having, on the 5th August 1890, waded out to a man who, while bathing, had been swept away by the tide, and, becoming exhausted, was in danger of being drowned’ (Ref. Extract from the 52nd Annual Report, year ended 1st July 1891).

‘Votes of Thanks each to Thomas Smith and Robert Thomas, keepers of the Rock Lighthouse, New Brighton, for rescuing a man from the River Mersey at New Brighton, on 7th October 1905’ (Ref. Extract from the 67th Annual Report, year ended 1st July 1906).

Also awarded the Liverpool Shipwreck & Humane Society’s 1st type Marine Medallion in silver (listed in the J. Lawson Whalley Collection, published 1877). The medal was inscribed, ‘Robert Thomas for his courageous and gallant conduct in saving twenty-one lives from the S.S. Ibis in lifeboat of S.S. City of London, Dec. 1865’.

An extract from a letter written by Robert Thomas to J. Lawson Whalley and recorded in his catalogue, details the rescue:

‘The steamer Ibis was wrecked on the 21st of December, 1865, off the Irish coast between Ballycotton and Queenstown. The tug Lord Clyde came to hail our steamer the City of London and called for a lifeboat to render assistance to the wreck. Lifeboat No. 1 was launched, and I was first into the boat, and manned her with six more hands. The tug took us in tow and let go about one hundred yards from the vessel which we succeeded in reaching and took off twenty-one persons - nineteen men and two women, and then with our living freight struck for the City of London but could not get aboard, the sea rolling so heavily, we were towed into the harbour’. Sold with copied research concerning the loss of the Atlantic.