Auction Catalogue

1 December 2010

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations and Medals

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 511

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1 December 2010

Hammer Price:
£250

Netherlands, Royal South Holland Society Medal for Saving Life from Shipwreck, 45mm., silver, reverse inscribed, ‘William Noakes, 22 Januan 1881’, unmounted, edge bruising, very fine £120-160

On the 18th January the steamer Ingerid stranded on the Sunk Sand, in thick fog and a snowstorm. In the evening of the 20th a message about this arrived at Harwich, upon which the lifeboat had to be launched from the harbour, in bitter cold [weather] and a storm at about seven o’clock. It made the trip to Sunk Sand with a crew of 11 men, under the command of the coxswain W. Britton, and the district inspector of lifeboat-stations was also aboard.

In the early morning they arrived at the steamer, which had sunk, and the remaining crew had been lashed to the rigging, half-frozen, for two days. With much effort they were taken aboard the lifeboat, being almost half-dead. They arrived at the pier in the morning between 9 and 10 o’clock and were immediately taken ashore and received medical treatment. Captain Van der Hoop, the mate Poppinga, the engineer Heerard, a stoker and three sailors had been saved. On Wednesday-morning a sloop had left the ship with 7 men and two men had drowned trying to get aboard the sloop. However the sloop has not been found, so nine people have lost their lives.

The Board of Directors decides to award a gold medal to Mr. A. St. Vincent Nepean, captain of the naval reserve and inspector; the large silver medal to coxswain Wm. Britton and the silver medal and a certificate to the crew members Benjamin Dale (second coxswain of the lifeboat
Springwell), William Ward, Alfred Holden, George Fenner, William Morris, Alfred Lee, Robert Scarlett, John Mills, John Lambeth, Robert Fenner and William Noakes’. (ref. Minutes of the Board of Directors (translation)).

Captain St. Vincent Nepean, R.N., District Inspector of Lifeboats and Assistant Coxswain William Britton, of the Harwich Lifeboat, were additionally both awarded the R.N.L.I. Silver Medal – voted 3 February 1881.

‘20-21 January 1881: The 438 ton Dutch screw steamship
Ingerid of Rotterdam on passage from Norway to Naples, Italy, with a cargo of fish, struck the Sunk Sand, off Clacton, Essex, on 17 January. Seven men left the steamship the next day in one of her boats, whilst two more men were lost overboard, which left the Master and six men lashed to the foremast in bitterly cold conditions. When the wreck was finally reported by the Cork lightship on the 20th, the Harwich lifeboat Springwell set out at 7pm, but the frost had been so severe that a way had to be cut through the ice to the harbour mouth. After a difficult journey the lifeboat found the wreck between 4 and 5am and, at the second attempt, put a line aboard. The lifeboat crew, led by Mr Britton and including Captain Nepean, boarded and helped the survivors into their boat which set off on the return journey. Arriving at the Cork lightship, they encountered the Lowestoft tug Despatch which took them in tow, and they reached Harwich, just before 10am on the 21st.’ (Ref. Lifeboat Gallantry, by Barry Cox)