Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Seaman W. Edwards, H.M. Mail Packet Widgeon

Lloyd’s Medal for Saving Life at Sea, 1st large type bronze medallion, 73mm. (Watkin Edwards, Seaman of Her Majesty’s Mail Packet Widgeon, 30th March 1842), fitted with loop suspension; Royal Humane Society, large bronze medal (successful), the reverse officially inscribed to ‘W. Edwards’ and dated ‘1842’, extremely fine (2) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to Merchant Seamen and D.E.M.S. Gunners.

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William Edwards was born at Falmouth, Cornwall, in January 1804, and was serving as a North Sea Pilot about the time of the rescue of the crew of the brig Minerva, from Jersey, by H.M. Mail Packet Widgeon, off Calais, in a heavy storm on 10 March 1842 - the date that appears on the Lloyd’s Medal appertains to the day on which the relevant committee gathered to consider awards. And the Widgeon’s arrival on the scene was timely, ‘the brig with all her sails in shivers’ (A copied Times report refers). And as a result of the gallantry displayed by the likes of Edwards and his shipmates, Lloyd’s issued two silver and seven bronze medals, rescuers and survivors being feted at a public dinner at which monetary awards were also made; sold with a file of research.