Orders, Decorations and Medals

Windsor & Eton Humane Society, bronze, obv. within a laurel wreath impressed, No. XIII’; rev. within a wreath of laurel and oak engraved, ‘For Saving Three Lives in the Thames’, 38mm., claw and ring suspension, good very fine, rare £200-250

Ex Preston-Morley Buckinghamshire Collection, D.N.W. 28 March 2002, lot 709, D.N.W. 18 September 1998, lot 329 and Stansfield Collection.

The death by drowning in 1834 of Jack Hall, who had been for nearly 50 years a fisherman and servant of Eton College, led to the formation of the Eton & Windsor Humane Society. The Society prevented many accidents in the summertime by stationing watermen in dangerous spots to warn those unacquainted with the river’s characteristics; in the winter, when the river was frozen, men with suitable drag ropes and other grappling devices were similarly deployed. Further details and a copy engraving of Jack Hall are sold with the lot.