Orders, Decorations and Medals

Board of Trade Medal for Gallantry in Saving Life at Sea, V.R., large, bronze (John Stevens, Wreck of the S.S. “Glamorgan” on the 16th February-1883) good very fine £280-320

Ex Watters Collection, Glendinings June 1913.

The Warren Line steamship Glamorgan (of 2,397 tons), of Liverpool, sailed from Liverpool, bound for Boston, on 8 February 1883. On 14 February she was struck by a tremendous wave which swept away her fore mast, bridge and much of her deck work and stove in her hatches and flooded her engine room. Her captain and seven men were also lost. On 16 February the White Star liner Republic came upon the wrecked vessel and took off all 44 survivors. The Glamorgan foundered soon afterwards.

John Stevens, a crew member of the White Star liner Republic, was awarded the Board of Trade Gallantry Medal in Bronze for service in the rescue of the passengers and crew of the steamship Glamorgan on 16 February 1883. The Master and the First and Second Mate of the Republic were each awarded a Board of Trade Gallantry Medal in Silver together with a silver tea and coffee service. The Captain, who in 1876 had been awarded the Board of Trade Gallantry Medal in Bronze, was additionally awarded the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society’s Marine Medal in Gold for this rescue; the First Mate was additionally awarded the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society’s Marine Medal in Silver; the Humane Society of Massachusetts Reward of Merit Silver Medal and the Life Saving Benevolent Association of New York Gold Medal for the rescue. Stevens and eleven other member’s of the Republic’s crew were each awarded the Board of Trade Gallantry Medal in Bronze and a gratuity of £5.

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