A Small Collection of Medals to Naval Surgeons

The Sir Gilbert Blane Gold Medal (Staff Surgeon Arthur William Bligh Livesay, M.B., H.M.S. “Bonaventure” 1907) 22 carat gold, 51.5gm, in its original presentation case, extremely fine £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Medals to Naval Surgeons.

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See Colour Plate III

Arthur William Bligh Livesay was appointed Surgeon in November 1895, Staff Surgeon in November 1903, and Fleet Surgeon in November 1911. Whilst still a young boy Arthur Livesay was awarded the Bronze Medal of the Royal Humane Society for saving life on 13 August, 1885, when a boy named Cheverton, while bathing at Niton, Isle of Wight, got into deep water and sank. Arthur Livesay, aged 14, went in, and, diving, succeeded in saving him.

In 1830 the late Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart., established a fund, vested in the Corporation of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, in trust, for the purpose of conferring a gold medal once in every two years on each of the two Medical Officers (Fleet, or Staff Surgeons, or Surgeons) who shall produce the most approved journals of their practice “in the form in which they have been kept from day to day” while in Medical charge of a ship of war in the Royal Navy.