Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Chief Petty Officer 1st Class E. Keene, Royal Navy, who served in H.M.S. Butterfly with the Tigris Gunboat Flotilla during the Great War

1914-15 Star (157966 E. Keene. C.P.O. 1, R.N.); British War Medal 1914-20 (157966 E. Keene. C.P.O. 1 R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., E.VII.R. (157966 Edward Keene, P.O.1 Cl, H.M.S. Achilles.); Royal Humane Society, small bronze medal (successful) (Edward Keene H.M.S. “Albion” Oct: 17, 1903) very fine and better (4) £300-£400

R.H.S. Bronze Medal (Case No. 33062): Edward Keene, Petty Officer 1st Class RN, saved a stoker from drowning off Genson, on the 17th October 1903.

The Hampshire Telegraph, 23 January 1904, gives further details:
‘The Humane Society have awarded a medal to Edward Keene, Petty Officer, H.M.S. Albion, for plunging overboard at sea on October 17th and saving a stoker who was washed overboard from a picket boat.’

Edward Keene was born on 22 June 1875 at Chertsey, Surrey and joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class on 21 October 1890. He served in the battleships H.M.S. Anson, May 1892 to September 1893, and H.M.S. Empress of India September 1893 to May 1895, advancing to Able Seaman on 1 August 1894. At the time of his valiant lifesaving action in 1903 he was serving in the pre-dreadnought battleship H.M.S. Albion and he was awarded the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal on 23 June 1908 while he was in the armoured cruiser H.M.S. Achilles.

Keene received promotion to Chief Petty Officer 1st Class on 10 October 1911 and was on the East Indies Station during the Great War. Borne on the books of the Persian Gulf base ships H.M.S. Alert and H.M.S. Dalhousie, he served from 22 November 1915 to 22 July 1917 on H.M. Gunboat Butterfly, a small but well armed Fly-class river gunboat designed specifically to patrol the Tigris during the Mesopotamian Campaign. He was shore demobilised on 3 March 1919.