Medals from the Collection of Peter and Dee Helmore

Royal Humane Society, small bronze medal (successful) (Edward A. J. Pusey. 2nd Nov. 1911.) with integral bronze riband buckle, in Elkington, London, case of issue; together with the recipient’s Royal Humane Society Bestowal Certificate, this somewhat damaged and mounted on board, extremely fine £160-£200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals from the Collection of Peter and Dee Helmore.

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R.H.S. Case No. 38,800: ‘12 midnight 2 November 1911. In the Thames off Tilbury W H Beagles aged 34 was thrown into the river owing to his boat being smashed mid river on a dark night with a strong tide. Pusey jumped in from a tug and took a lifebuoy to the man and kept him up till they were picked up’.
Edward Arthur James Pusey was born in Chadwell St Mary, Orsett, Essex, in 1892, the son of a River Thames tug captain. Apprenticed to a Thames Waterman in 1907, at the time of the rescue he was aged 19 and serving as Second Mate on the Tilbury Dredging Company’s tug Danube II. Later serving in the Great War as a Sub-Lieutenant Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, he never claimed the British War and Victory Medals to which he was entitled. He died at Stratton, Bude, Cornwall, on 12 August 1972, aged 79.

The following detailed statement is included with the lot:
‘I purchased E A J Pusey’s RHS medal together RHS certificate and photographs at the local auction in Bude, Cornwall in 1977. Later that year I met with Owen E Pusey, then living in Bude, the elder son of Edward Pusey. Owen confirmed the photographs as being those of his father and his mother (Edith Emily Pusey née Digby). He informed me that his late father commenced employment on the river Thames aged 11 and was apprenticed aged 15. The task of the Tilbury Dredging Company was to keep the river clear and they would tow 2 barges containing dredged material downriver at night with 30 fathoms of tow for disposal in the Thames estuary off the coast of Kent. In WWI his father served as a tug master in the RNVR and took his Thames tug Southampton to the Mediterranean. He subsequently became a Freeman of the Thames and, as the senior master on the river at the time, he headed the Review of Shipping on the Thames to celebrate King George V’s Silver Jubilee.’

Sold with contemporary full account of rescue from the Daily Mirror, 20 January 1912, original Great War photograph of Edward Pusey in R.N.V.R. uniform; and further copied research.