A Small Collection of Medals to the Merchant Navy

A good Great War Lloyd’s M.S.M. awarded to Master G. A. Frew, Mercantile Marine

Lloyd’s Medal for Meritorious Services, 3rd type, silver (Captain George Arthur (sic) Frew, S.S. “Branksome Hall”, 2nd Nov. 1917), in its fitted Wyon case of issue, extremely fine £350-400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Medals to the Merchant Navy.

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George Alexander Frew, who was born in Killough, Co Down, in 1883, was Master of the S.S. Branksome Hall on the occasion of her being torpedoed off Bolt Head in November 1917. Jim Gawler’s Lloyd’s Medals 1836-1989 takes up the story:

‘During the night of 2 November 1917, when the S.S. Branksome Hall was off Bolt Head, she was torpedoed on the starboard quarter close to the gun’s magazine. She at once commenced to sink rapidly by the stern, and listed so much that the Master ordered the crew to the boat stations. Finding that the engine room was flooded and the machinery all out of action, and being unable to ascertain the extent of the damage to the magazine, the Master ordered the boats to leave the ship and stand by.

The whole crew, including the Master, were picked up by a steam trawler, which stood by for a short time. The Master then called for volunteers and returned on board with 19 officers and men. A very heavy sea was running and the vessel was listing heavily to port, the deck being awash.

Ropes and wires were made ready for towing, and a line passed to a patrol boat, which proved to be too light to tow the Branksome Hall. A tug then came up and took her in tow, but after a few minutes the line broke owing to the heavy sea. Several of the crew then became anxious to leave, so the Master sent them back to the steam trawler – three Officers, two Engineers, two Quartermasters and the Donkeyman remaining with him.

The tug made fast again and although the ropes parted several times during the night and the vessel drifted towards rocks, she was eventually safely towed to Salcombe Bar, where she was beached. She was taken off and towed to Devonport on 18 November.’

Eventually repaired and refloated, the Branksome Hall returned to sea under Frew’s command, but she was torpedoed and sunk on 14 July 1918, fortunately without loss of life.

Remaining actively employed between the Wars, Frew was appointed to the command of the Portuguese-registered Anjou in October 1936, and he was still serving in that capacity when he became a prisoner of the Japanese. Incarcerated in the P.O.W. camp at Shamshuipo, he died of enteritis and chronic rheumatism on 14 September 1942, aged 59 years, and was buried in Stanley Military Cemetery, Hong Kong; sold with research.