Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain James O’Neill, Merchant Service, who was decorated by the Royal Humane Society for gallantry at Galveston, Texas, when aged 64 years, and twice honoured by the French for picking up two survivors mid-ocean in August 1908

Royal Humane Society, small bronze medal (successful) (James O’Niell, 22nd May 1913); France, Central Society of Life Saving Medal, silver, the reverse with embossed inscription, ‘Mr. James O’Neil, Capitaine du Vapeur Anglais “Oilfield”, Sauvetage en Mer de Deux Hommes en Detresse, 21 Aout 1908’, in its red leather fitted case of issue; France, Rouen Chamber of Commerce Medal, silver-gilt, the reverse engraved, ‘Capitaine O’Neill, Commandant, L’Oilfield, 1908’, in its red leather fitted case of issue, good very fine and better (3) £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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James O’Neil, who was born in Co. Armagh in 1848, first went to sea in the 1860s and qualified for his 2nd Mate’s ticket in October 1870.

For many years in the service of the Bibby Line of Liverpool, and afterwards Messrs. Hunting and Son of Newcastle, he was thrice honoured for lifesaving acts, the first such occasion gaining him the above described French awards - Lloyd’s agent at Rouen reporting that they were in respect of his ship, the Oilfield, picking up two members of the French fishing schooner La Normande, found adrift in a dory mid-ocean on 21 August 1908. Two of his ratings received the Rouen Chamber of Commerce, too, but in bronze.

His subsequent award of the Royal Humane Society’s Medal in bronze was in respect of rescuing a passenger from his ship the S.S. Bloomfield at midnight on 22 May 1913, at Galveston, Texas - ‘The man fell into the harbour when going ashore from the Bloomfield, the water being foul with oil. Salvor jumped in and held him for ten minutes when a rope was got and he was pulled out’. Society records add that O’Neill was then 64 years of age.

Remaining in command of the Bloomfield until June 1917, O’Neill died at Cape Town, South Africa, in April 1918; sold with a quantity of research.