HONOURED TWICE FOR RESCUES

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 24

HONOURED TWICE FOR RESCUES

Life-Saving Award For Princess LONDON, December 1. A princess who rescued four men from the sea at Padstow, Cornwall, last summer has been awarded the Royal Humane Society’s medal for life-saving for the second time. She is Princess Iris Wittgenstein, aged 39. grand-daughter of a former Dean of Westminster, who in 1950 married Prince Casimir Wittgenstein, of Frankfort. He is a member of a German family related to the Stuart kings of England. Announcing the awtird of the bronze medal, the society said the princess, who is the mother of two children, swam out in a lifebelt to four men in difficulties and brought them ashore. Twenty years ago, the Princess, then Miss Iris Ryle, rescued four men from drowning at the same spot and was awarded the silver medal of the society. In those days she was a glamorous debutante who became known as the “Bravest girl of 1937.”

Princess Wittgenstein is the great grand-daughter of a Yorkshire seaman who after some years in command of trading and whaling voyages in the early part of the last century, settled in New Zealand. He was Caotain William Barnard Rhodes. He settled in New Zealand in the 1840’s as a farmer and merchant. An uncle of the princess was also decorated for bravery. He was William Barnard Rhodes Moorhouse who was the first airman to be awarded the Victoria [Cross in World War L