Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Chief Petty Officer H. H. P. Harrison, Royal Navy

British War Medal 1914-20 (128047 C.P.O., R.N.); Royal Navy L.S. & G.C., V.R., narrow suspension (Boatn., H.M. Coast Guard) impressed naming; Sweden and Norway, Medal for Heroic Deeds, Oscar II (1872-1907), silver, edge inscribed, ‘...y Harrison 1898’, last with edge bruising and contact marks, nearly very fine and better (3) £250-300

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of British Groups with Foreign Awards.

View
Collection

Henry Hasting Pickering was born in Poplar, Middlesex on 9 May 1868. He entered the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class in January 1884, being advanced to Boy 1st Class in December the same year. He was promoted to Ordinary Seaman in May 1886, to Able Seaman in July 1887, and to Leading Seaman in October 1894. He was promoted to Petty Officer 2nd Class when on Repulse in September 1896. Transferring to the Coastguard Service in October 1896, he served as a Boatman at Leith, becoming a Commissioned Boatman at Arbroath in July 1903. In February 1902 he was awarded the Royal Navy L.S. & G.C. In June 1905 he was permitted to accept and wear the Norwegian Silver Medal awarded to him for services rendered at the wreck of the Broderine Clausen on 20 October 1898. When serving at Leven in April 1910 he was promoted to Petty Officer 2nd Class in the Coast Guard and in October 1911 he was advanced to Petty Officer. When based at Montrose in October 1915, he was advanced to Chief Petty Officer in the Coast Guard. The British War Medal was Harrison’s only wartime award.

The Norwegian brig Broderine Clausen was driven on to the rocks at Danger Point, Arbroath on 20 October 1898. Within 10 minutes the ship began to break up. Five members of the crew managed to take up a position on the after part of the ship, whilst another three were seen to be in the water. One, the Captain, managed to get back to the wreck and one was picked up by a lifeboat, whilst the third was swept out to sea and drowned. Members of the Rocket Life-Saving Brigade assisted by local fishermen then managed to get a line aboard the ship and eventually got the exhausted survivors safely back to shore. The Norwegian seamen were then cared for by the locals until the Vice-Consul for Norway and Sweden could take charge of them; the deceased member of the crew was given a public funeral attended by many local dignitaries. At the funeral special mention was made of the heroic conduct of the lifeboat crew and members of the Rocket Life-Saving Brigade.

With copied service papers and other research, including an extract from The Arbroath Herald of 27 October 1898 which provides details of the wreck of the Broderine Clausen and subsequent events.