Orders, Decorations and Medals Including five Special Collections

Windsor and Eton Humane Society, a bronze medal, laurel wreath, centre impressed (No. XIII), rev. wreath, engraved ‘For Saving Three Lives in the Thames’, 38mm, clip and ring for suspension and small blue riband, good very fine and patinated, very rare £200-250

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Preston-Morley Buckinghamshire Collection: Medals and Militaria.

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Collection

Provenance:

DNW Auction, 18 September 1998, lot 329.

The death by drowning in 1834 of Jack Hall, who had been for nearly 50 years a fisherman and servant of Eton College, led to the formation of the Eton & Windsor Humane Society. The Society prevented many accidents in the summertime by stationing watermen in dangerous spots to warn those unacquainted with the river’s characteristics; in the winter, when the river was frozen, men with suitable drag ropes and other grappling devices were similarly deployed. Further details and a copy engraving of Jack Hall are sold with the lot.