Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Gallantry reverse K.P.M. pair awarded to Police Constable Thomas Haynes, Metropolitan Police, for saving a woman from the path of two runaway horses

King’s Police Medal, G.V.R., 2nd issue, crowned head, ‘For Gallantry’ reverse (P.C. Thomas J. Haynes, Metropolitan Police); Coronation 1911, Metropolitan Police (P.C. T. Haynes.) very fine and scarce (2) £1,200-£1,600

Provenance: R. W. Gould, M.B.E., Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, September 2002

K.P.M. (For Gallantry) London Gazette 1 January 1934.

Approximately 170 K.P.M’s with the ‘For Gallantry’ reverse were awarded in the period 1934-37, including 60 awards for the United Kingdom, the remainder being for India, Burma, Dominions and Colonies.

At about 4.45 p.m. on the 24th August, 1932, two heavy draught horses bolted with a heavy van in Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, a narrow, crowded thoroughfare. Constable Haynes, who was on duty in Rotherhithe Police Station in this street, heard shouting and ran out into the roadway. He was in time to push a woman out of the way of the galloping horses, and to seize the reins of the offside horse. He then ran alongside for some forty yards, but was handicapped in his efforts to stop the horses by a loose offside trace, which eventually caused him to lose his balance. In falling, the constable, who is a very heavy man, pulled the offside horse on top of him, and they were dragged some yards by the near-side horse before it came to a standstill. It would appear that the wheels of the van passed over him at this time. The constable, who is forty-three years of age, was severely injured, and was unable to resume duty for five months.

Thomas John Haynes was born at West Kensington on 21 January 1890. He joined the Metropolitan Police on 28 December 1910, retired on pension on 27 December 1936, and died on 18 June 1968.

When sold in 2002, the pair was accompanied by a copy of his Central Record of Service, Police Commissioner’s Annual Report for 1933, and a copied article from The South London Press reporting the incident, from which the above information was compiled.