Prize, Training Ship, Nursing & Other Medals from the James N. Spencer Collection

Mount Edgecumbe Training Ship Medal, 32mm., bronze, in the form of a life-belt, ‘Training Ship Mt. Edgecumbe, Old Boys Memorial Challenge Trophy’; Port of Plymouth, Champion Cutters Crew, 1925, R. Payne’ (name and year engraved), ring suspension; H.M.S. Impregnable Medal (2), ship-of-the-line; reverse engraved, ‘Inter Training Ship, Football, 1912-13, G. J. Edmunds’, 39mm., silver, unmounted; another, reverse engraved, ‘Impregnable II, R. Payne, Boys Cutter, 1925, 39mm., bronze, unmounted; Shotley Prize Medal, ship’s figurehead, ‘R.N.T.E. Shotley’; reverse engraved, ‘“Ganges”, “Najaden”, “Jarramas” One Mile, 1925’, 39mm., gilt base metal, unmounted; Royal Naval College Dartmouth Medal, by Page, Keen & Page, Plymouth, Britannia within a garter, naval crown above; reverse engraved, ‘1925, Junior Mile Open, 2nd W. E. Waters’, 39mm., silver, hallmarks for Birmingham 1924, unmounted, good very fine and better (5) £60-80

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Prize, Training Ship, Nursing & Other Medals from the James N. Spencer Collection.

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Mount Edgecumbe, the former 4th rate Winchester, the former training ship Conway (2nd of that name), was lent to the Devon and Cornwall Industrial Training Committee in 1877. Based at Saltash, Plymouth it was used as a training ship. It was sold in 1921.

The first H.M.S. Impregnable as portrayed on the medals, was launched at Chatham in 1810 as a 1st rate 98 gun ship-of-the-line. She saw action with Lord Exmouth at Algiers in 1816. In 1862 she joined the Implacable at Devonport as a training ship. Since then there have been quite a number of ships bearing the name Impregnable. The Impregnable II (ref. the third medal) started life as the cruiser Andromeda built in 1897. Renamed the Powerful II in 1913, Impregnable II in 1919 and Defiance in 1931, she was finally broken up in 1956.

The Royal Naval Training Establishment at Shotley was the shore base for the training of boy entrants for the Royal Navy, 1905-76. In 1927 it took the name H.M.S. Ganges.