Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society, 1st type, silver (Pierce Thompson 1851.) with straight silver bar suspension, suspension bar re-affixed, minor edge bruise, otherwise extremely fine £300-400

Provenance: Lawson Walley Collection; Glendining’s, May 1992.

Pierce Thompson, Boatman, was born in 1780 and appointed to the Coast Guard on 29 June 1824, subsequently joining the Cushenden Station on 22 July 1847. He was awarded the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society’s silver medal, along with five other men from the Cushenden Coast Guard, for saving the lives of five members of the crew of the Martin, wrecked off Rock Port, near Cushenden, off the north east coast of Ireland on 16 January 1851: ‘In a very heavy gale, the Coleraine schooner Martin parted her anchors at 3:00 p.m. and drove on to the rocks off Rock Point near Cushenden, Co. Antrim, Ireland. With the schooner’s boat broken to pieces by the seas passing over her, the crew of Master and four men took to a mast. Lieutenant Arthur Kennedy, Royal Navy, of the Cushenden Coast Guard, and his crew were unable to launch their own boat, and so carried a country boat over the rocks to a position opposite the wreck and launched. They were forced to put back twice because of the very high seas breaking over them, but rescued the schooner’s crew at the third attempt.’ (Lifeboat Gallantry refers).

Thompson retired from the Coast Guard on 22 August 1857, and died on 22 February 1873.

Lieutenant Kennedy was additionally awarded the Royal National Institute for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck Medal in silver for this action.