Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Sea Gallantry Medal (Foreign Services), V.R., small, silver, ‘From the British Government, For Gallantry and Humanity’ (Auguste Vincent Levillain 13th. April 1887.) surname partially officially corrected, traces of fire damage to both planchet and suspension, therefore good fine £80-120

Auguste Vincent Levillain was one of thirteen Frenchmen awarded the silver Sea Gallantry Medal (Foreign Services) for the rescue of the survivors of the paddle steamer Victoria, which crashed into rocks off Dieppe: ‘On 13 April 1887, the paddle steamer Victoria, owned by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company, was employed in her usual role as a ferry between Newhaven and Dieppe. The ship left Newhaven with 94 passengers and 30 crew, and on approaching the French coast ran into thick fog. From the distance he had travelled, Captain J. S. Clark, of the Victoria, was aware that he must be in the neighbourhood of the dangerous Pointe d’Ailly. He listened for the fog siren which he knew was on the lighthouse, but no sound reached him. He then checked his position as best he could by ascertaining from the engine room the number of revolutions the engines had made since entering the fog belt. The result convinced him that he must be perilously close to the shore, and he decided that he must be east of Dieppe. On that assumption he put about, but he had scarcely proceeded on his fresh course when the vessel crashed on the rocks. The lifeboat of St. Valery-en-Caux, crewed by 13 Frenchmen, was put out to rescue, despite some risk in launching the boat by means of sluice water in the dry dock, and succeeded in rescuing 39 people from the wreck of the Victoria. Nineteen lives were lost.
It was revealed that the assistant lighthouse keeper at Pint d’Ailly had neglected to light the boiler fires at the first approach of fog, and thus there was no steam available for the fog siren at the time that the Victoria struck.’ (The Sea Gallantry Medal, by R. J. Scarlett refers).

A Board of Trade note in the remarks column of the file authorising the medals for this action states: ‘Medals only given as a matter of policy owing to the public interest in the wreck of the Victoria.’