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Auction: 15003 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 231

The Jubilee 1977 Medal Awarded to S.T. Booker, G.C., Who Had Been Awarded the Edward Medal (Mines) in Bronze for Gallantry During Rescue Operations at Littleton Colliery, 14.5.1937
Jubilee 1977, unnamed as issued, tarnish mark to obverse, extremely fine, with Buckingham Palace Certificate, named to 'Samuel T. Booker, G.C.', in Central Chancery envelope

E.M. London Gazette 4.2.1938 Samuel Booker (in a joint citation with David Noel Booker)
'On the afternoon of the 14th May, 1937, three men were at work dismantling the plant at a conveyor face in a gate, at a distance of some 70-80 yards from the main level, in the Littleton Colliery, South Staffordshire. Firedamp appeared to be spreading in the gate, since, at about 8:00pm, a fireman set off from the level to see what the men were doing up the gate and found that his lamp was extinguished at about 20 yards from the level. Between this time and about midnight, when full rescue apparatus became available and the bodies were recovered, efforts at rescue were made by a succession of men, some of whom themselves collapsed and thereby added to the task of later rescuers: of these one, Mr. Walmsley, the Under-Manager, himself lost his life, thus bringing the death roll to four. In these operations the brothers Booker were outstanding. Each of them forced his way up the gate on four or five separate occasions, and they were jointly or severally responsible for extricating four earlier rescuers who had succumbed to the gas; all of these survived except Mr. Walmsley, the Under-Manager. On all of these occasions the brothers Booker, who seem to have been men of high resisting powers, displayed great courage, which is to be rated even more highly as it was reinforced by an almost equal measure of coolness and forethought.'

Mr. Samuel Thomas Booker, G.C., born Bloxwich, Walsall, Stafforshire, 1.4.1902; educated at Bloxwich Church of England School; awarded the Edward Medal (Mines) in Bronze for gallantry at the Littleton Colliery, Staffordshire, 14.5.1937; awarded the Medal by H.M. King George VI at Buckingham Palace, 17.2.1938; exchanged his Edward Medal (Mines) for a George Cross, and presented with the G.C. by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, 20.3.1973; died, Walsall, Staffordshire, December 1979.

His George Cross is currently on display in the National Coal Mining Museum for England.

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Sold for
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