THE LIFE SAVING AWARDS RESEARCH SOCIETY Journal No. 98 August 2020 DIXON’S MEDALS (CJ & AJ Dixon Ltd.) Publishers of Dixon’s Gazette Subscription: for 4 issues UK £20 including p&p Europe £25. Overseas £30 including airmail p&p th Charles Smith ‘Wreck of the Newminster 29 September 1897’ AVAILABLE AT DIXON’S MEDALS www.dixonsmedals.co.uk Email [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)1262 676877 / 603348 1ST FLOOR, 23 PROSPECT STREET, BRIDLINGTON EAST YORKSHIRE, YO15 2AE, ENGLAND J98 IFC - Dixon.indd 1 28/07/2020 09:36:47 THE LIFE SAVING AWARDS RESEARCH SOCIETY JOURNAL August 2020 Number 98 A Medal for Gallant Conduct in Industry .................................................................. 3 Gallant Rescue of a Dog ........................................................................................... 13 The SS Arctees and the SS English Trader ............................................................ 14 Whatever Happened to the Exchange Albert Medals? ......................................... 23 Albert Medal Gallery – Eric William Kevin Walton, GC, DSC .................................. 26 Maori Jack .................................................................................................................. 30 The Ireland Medal – The First Ten Years (2003-13) ............................................... 33 The Peoples Heroes – Part 2 .................................................................................... 45 An Unknown Life Saver ............................................................................................ 63 Missing Medals .......................................................................................................... 64 Book Review .............................................................................................................. 68 Around the Auctions ................................................................................................. 70 Noticeboard ................................................................................................................ 86 Visit us at www.lsars.org.uk JOURNAL BACKNUMBERS Copies of the Society’s Journal can be downloaded from our website. We have a very limited number of hard copy Journals still in stock, so please contact the Journal Editor is you wish to obtain a back number. These are available free to members excluding the postage costs. © The Life Saving Awards Research Society 2020 except where otherwise noted. Published by: The Life Saving Awards Research Society Printed by: Printechnique, Bourne PE10 9SN Journal No.98 The Life Saving Awards Research Society COMMITTEE Past Presidents: William H. Fevyer Captain Jack Boddington, KStJ President: Bob Scarlett email: [email protected] Secretary: Craig Barclay Durham University Oriental Museum, Elvet Hill, Durham DH1 3TH ( 0191 334 5690; email: [email protected] Membership Secretary: Kim Claxton Warren Cottage 14 Bedstone Bucknell Shropshire SY7 0BE ( 01547 530611 email: [email protected] Treasurer: Bob Scarlett Journal Editorial Team John Wilson - Editor Tony Jones – Assistant Editor Bob Scarlett Roger Willoughby Webmaster: Webmaster: Ralph Daly email: [email protected] Address for Journal Correspondence: John Wilson Upper Cottage 11 The Street West Horsley Surrey KT24 6AY ( 07515 629566 email: [email protected] Research enquiries: email: [email protected] Journal No.98 The Life Saving Awards Research Society A MEDAL FOR GALLANT CONDUCT IN INDUSTRY by Tony Jones To explain this article, I will begin with a medal, a single medal, sold by Dix Noonan Webb on 27 September 2018. I was fortunate enough to be the winning bidder and took possession some time later. The N.S.F.A. Gallant Conduct Medal The medal in question was a National Safety First Association Gallant Conduct Medal, described as silver (hallmarks for Birmingham 1924). The medal is suspended from a green ribbon, with two narrow red stripes on each side and has an integral top silver riband bar. The medal was contained in its Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company, London, fitted case of issue and described as extremely fine. The reverse is engraved: FOR GALLANT CONDUCT 16TH. FEBRUARY 1933. AWARDED TO JOSEPH P. MURPHY EMPLOYED BY MESSRS LEVER BROTHERS LTD. A footnote in the auction catalogue description further expanded the rescue details as: Joseph P. Murphy was awarded the National Safety First Association Gallant Conduct Medal for saving the life of a man who fell into an oil vat on 16 February 1933. 3 The Life Saving Awards Research Society Journal No.98 Below is a sneak preview of the man I was about to begin researching. Throughout there seems to have been confusion on the names and initials of those involved. It could be said that perhaps this shows just how low down the social ladder these men were, but nonetheless bravery from any level of society needs to be recognised. J.F. Murphy or J.P. Murphy Anyone who knows the Port Sunlight and Lever Brothers site will remember the overpowering smells, both nice and not so nice emanating from the factory depending upon what product they were producing that week, and all too often depending upon the wind direction for the length of time the smell hung around. It still happens today, though not as frequently. Plan of Port Sunlight Village 1914 4 Journal No.98 The Life Saving Awards Research Society The history of Port Sunlight is well written and like Bourneville and Salatire was conceived for the betterment of the ‘workers’ by a well-meaning benefactor and / or factory owner. Would the added bonus that a happy workforce might be a more productive workforce have been a consideration for the current generation of management – an interesting thought. So that’s the social history bit covered, but there are several excellent works on the Wirral, Soap, Chocolate and Textiles if you want more specific detail. Research As I began to research the medal, Google produced virtually nothing except to take me back to the DNW website - but as ever, it is finding the correct words and putting them in the correct order that often helps. Let’s start with what might prove to be useful and pertinent knowledge. Lever Brothers use oil in their manufacturing processes, so a man falling into an oil vat could conceivably happen there. The British Newspaper Archive (BNA) had to be the next place to visit, again whilst I had a specific date, there was no specific place.1 Lever Brothers would suggest the works or factory and an industrial type of accident. I also had a name so there were several avenues to search into. Newspapers The first information that I found was in the Framlingham News of 25 February 1933. Given that Framlingham is in Suffolk, either it was a ‘quiet’ news day, or, this was a significantly more serious event than simply a ‘man falling into an oil vat’. ‘20 BLAZING MEN TRAPPED - DRAMA IN OIL TANKERS HOLD Twenty men, with their oil-soaked clothing fiercely Blazing, tried to climB from the hold of the Scandinavian oil tanker Tasmanic (4,079 tons) when fire arose while she was lying in Messrs. Lever Brothers dock at BromBorough, near Port Sunlight, Cheshire. Three of the men died and five were seriously injured. The dead men were:- Clifford Rowls, aged 24, of BeBington, near BromBorough; Joseph Griffiths, 42, of Birkenhead; and Lawrence Sheen, 46, of Port Sunlight. Twenty-two men were working in the hold when the clothes of one suddenly Burst into flames. As each of the others went to his assistance their clothes took fire, and soon the compartment was a Blazing mass. Men tore the clothes off each other’s backs, and the most seriously injured were hauled to safety in a cargo basket. The hold had to be flooded while some of the men were still inside before the flames were extinguished. The men had Been cleaning a hold from which a cargo of palm oil had Been discharged, and they had sacking tied round them to prevent their clothes being harmed. “Without warning,” J. Murphy, a charge hand, told a reporter, “we saw the sacking that Griffiths was wearing leap into flames. He was like a human torch in a second. Within a few minutes nearly 20 of us were aBlaze. The smoke and flames filled the hold. There was a ladder leading to the deck, and some of the men were aBle to climB up this to safety. Then Rowls attempted to climB. He was just one roaring mass of flames. He reached the top and then fell back 30 feet. He was dead before he reached hospital. Men tried to get us from the deck and lowered a cargo Basket. One by one we were able to load the worst injured into it.”’ 1 Lever Brothers Covers a very large area on the opposite bank of the River Mersey to Liverpool. The Works and OffiCes, BromborouGh Pool and the DoCk, Port SunliGht VillaGe would all be reGarded as one and the same place. 5 The Life Saving Awards Research Society Journal No.98 I had, a couple of questions answered, oil was involved, but not in the factory as I originally believed, but on board a ship called the Tasmanic in Bromborough Dock - more questions. Now I had more information, a more definite location, a ship to search for and several more names. Was the man J. Murphy my man? Is he in fact Joseph P. Murphy? I had a little more digging, and a lot more research to do. A second BNA search revealed an article from a lot closer to home, the Liverpool Echo, written the very day of the accident and quoting several of the men involved directly. ONE KILLED; 8 INJURED TWENTY TRAPPED IN TANKER BLAZE CAUSE A MYSTERY BRIGADE & AMBULANCES DASH TO VESSEL “MEN AS TORCHES” One man