Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society, Marine Medal, 1st type, silver, 56mm, frosted and glazed, the outer rim inscribed ‘..ohn Robinson for his courageous & gallant conduct in saving 21 Lives from S.S. Ibis in Life Boat of S.S. City of London Dec...’, with crudely fitted ring suspension which partly obscures the edge inscription, the lunettes both replaced at some point, edge bruising, very fine £280-£320

John Robinson was one of seven men awarded the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society silver medal for helping save the lives of the crew of S.S. Ibis in December 1865:

‘The steamer Ibis was wrecked on the 21st of December, 1865, off the Irish coast between Ballycotton and Queenstown. The tug Lord Clyde came to hail our steamer the City of London and called for a lifeboat to render assistance to the wreck. Lifeboat No. 1 was launched, and I was first into the boat, and manned her with six more hands. The tug took us in tow and let go about one hundred yards from the vessel which we succeeded in reaching and took off twenty-one persons - nineteen men and two women, and then with our living freight struck for the City of London but could not get aboard, the sea rolling so heavily, we were towed into the harbour.’ (extract from a letter written by Robert Thomas to the medal collector J. Lawson Whalley, and recorded in his catalogue, refers).