Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An unusual pair of Life Saving Medals awarded to H. Hickson and J. Hobbs for saving the life of Lieutenant Ross off Upnor, Kent, in August 1855

Life Saving Medal (2), utilizing the Naval General Service Medal 1793-1840, with original naming erased, ‘Queen Victoria’ obverse erased to make way for an inscription, and fitted with a replacement swivel ring suspension; the reverse (formerly the obverse) inscribed, ‘Presented to Henry Hickson by the Inhabitants of Upnor for saving from drowning Lieut. Rofs, his Wife’s Servant & 2 seamen, Augt. 1855’; another, as above, to ‘James Hobbs’, this last with minor edge bruise, very fine and better (2) £400-500

Provenance: Jack Boddington Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, December 2006.

Thomas Curtis Ross entered the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant in 1839. In 1855 he was serving as a Lieutenant on the Wellesley which at that time was a ‘guardship of the ordinary’ (laid up in a dockyard or harbour but still with a skeleton crew). Lieutenant Ross and his family were engaged in sailing upon the Medway when an accident took place:

‘Accident to Lieutenant Ross, R.N. - Last week between six and seven o’clock, as Lieut. Ross of the Wellesley, 72, doing duty as divisional Lieutenant on board the Southampton, was sailing in his gig, which contained his wife and child, with a female servant, and three shipkeepers, a gust of wind from the land off Upnor took the sails, and capsized the boat, by which the whole party were thrown into the river. Mrs Ross was picked up in a very exhausted state, and fears were entertained for her recovery; but this morning she is somewhat better. The child was picked up alive, but died shortly afterwards, and one of the shipkeepers was drowned. The rest of the party sustained no material injury, excepting Lieutenant Ross, who has been taken to Melville Hospital, in a very weakly state’. (Extract from The United Service Gazette, Saturday 11 August 1855).
As a corollary to this tragedy, there was in the 30 January 1858 edition of The United Service Gazette, the notification, ‘Lieutenant Thomas Curtis Ross (1839), of Her Majesty’s ship Wellesley, died in Melville Hospital, of Bronchitis, on the 21st, aged 48’.

Sold with copied research, including an article written by Captain Boddington, and photographs.

he date of the rescue was August 1855, not 1811