3-028-568 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Medal presented to Captain Ward, 1870. 'The inspector of life-boats to the Royal National Life-Boat Institution, Captain J. R. Ward, R.N., lately received a gratifying token of the appreciation of his services to humanity entertained by the French nation. This was a gold medal bestowed on him by the Council of Administration of the Société Centrale de Sauvetage des Naufragés...It is intended especially to mark their sense of the usefulness of the life-belt invented by Captain Ward, as more than three thousand of these life-belts are now distributed on board French merchant-vessels, or at the ports...on the French coast. It is only five years since Captain Ward brought the first lifeboat to Cherbourg; and there are now 45 life-boats stationed along the shores of France. It is stated in the letter of the council...that five hundred shipwrecked persons had...been saved from perishing by the aid of these French lifeboats. The medal is adorned on one side with a fine portrait of the Empress Eugénie, whose benevolent sympathy with the objects of the society is well known. There is something which touches and pleases the imagination in this generous interchange of civilities and good offices between the French and English life-boat institutions'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.