Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Medal of the Order of the British Empire (Civil) unnamed as issued in its John Pinches, London, presentation case, the lid embossed ‘O.B.E. Medal’, attributed to Tom Coe for saving the life of a fellow worker during a fire at an explosives factory in Yorkshire in December 1917, good very fine £150-200

The medal is sold with a letter of reference from The Nort East Chemical Co. Ltd, dated 23 May 1917; a letter of congratulations from the Ministry of Munitions of War, dated 2 February 1918; a letter from the Clerk of the Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding (The Earl of Harewood) concerning the presentation of the O.B.E. Medal, dated 21 December 1918; and contemporary news cuttings with portraits and full details of the incident.

Tom Coe, of Brighouse, North Yorkshire, won his award on the occasion of the explosion at Messrs. Sharp & Mallett’s Works at Copley on 22 December 1917. Coe immediately ordered the turning on of all the sprinklers, and there is no doubt that this action prevented large quantities of the high explosives blowing up. There was a woman working in one of the large drying stoves, and, at great personal risk to their own lives, Coe and a workman named William Derricut, entered the stove and with great difficulty managed to get the unfortunate woman away, but before doing so Coe was blown off his feet and when part of the roof of the stove fell in it was only by a miracle that he was not buried. Although the woman was in a state of collapse, having been badly burned, Coe and Derricut got her to the ambulance and she was at once conveyed to the Halifax Infermary, but succumbed to her injuries three weeks afterwards. As soon as Coe had finished this exploit he ran for a hose pipe and was instrumental in saving large quantities of picric acid which would most certainly have exploded if it had been left in its dry state. Coe was badly bruised and his clothes torn and burnt, but he sustained no harm of a serious nature and was alright again in about a month’s time.