Auction Catalogue

1 December 2004

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 965

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1 December 2004

Hammer Price:
£270

Royal Humane Society, large silver medal (successful) (M. Walch, Vit. ob. Serv. D.D. Soc. Reg. Hvm. 1838), unmounted, good very fine £180-220

A 2nd type medal, the dies prepared by Benedetto Pistrucci (1794-1855).

‘On the morning of the 15th of February 1837, the ship
Glasgow, when running at the rate of nine miles an hour, struck upon a sunken rock off the Tusker, coast of Wrexford. It blew a heavy gale of wind, and the sea was very high. In a few minutes the vessel was a wreck, the water rushing into her, fore and aft, as through sluices. Just at the period, the schooner Alicia, commanded by Martin Walsh, hearing the signal of distress, bore down to their relief, and although repeatedly urged by his own crew not to risk the loss of his schooner by approaching the wreck, he replied, “that he had more at stake than they had, and that, although his vessel was all the property he possessed, he never would see lives lost while he could save them.” Acting upon this noble impulse, Captain Walsh ran alongside the wreck, and by the most undaunted courage and perservering humanity, he succeeded in saving eighty-two persons, to whom he and his crew afforded every possible relief.’