Lot details
A Royal National Life Boat Institution silver medal and bar, awarded to Mr. Matthew Kyle, voted 3rd April 1879, obverse of Queen Victoria bust portrait by Leonard C. Wyon, reverse of drowning seaman being rescued by three lifeboat-men, below dolphin mount and with soldered second service bar voted 13th January 1898, with original black ribbon. NB Matthew Kyle was Coxswain on the Holy Island No. 1 Life-Boat ''Grace Darling'' when on 20th March 1879 he, his brother George and his crew saved nine men from the wreck of the S.S. Darlington wrecked at False Emanuel Head, Holy Island. The medal awarded to his brother George Kyle, Assistant Coxswain, was sold by Spink & Son July 21st 2011 for £850, provenance J.B. Haywood Collection, Spink November 1995. The RNLI medal is to be awarded to ''persons whose humane and intrepid excursions in saving life from shipwreck on our coasts are deemed sufficiently conspicuous to merit honourable distinction''. PROVENANCE By family decent. See illustration