THE WORKERS’ V.C.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10377, 7 April 1927, Page 7

THE WORKERS’ V.C.

FOR DEEDS AS HEROIC AS OF

ANY SOLDIER

Two or three times a year an announcement that His Majestr the King has been pleased to award the Edward Medal for conspicuous gallantry appears in the “London Gazette.” Only occasionally does an account of the action appear in the daily papers, however, writes T. S. Denham in the “Daily Chronicle.” Yet deeds as heroic as those of soldiers and sailors in wartime are performed by the ununiformed workers of peace. The Edward Medal was recently awarded to George Locke for the rescue of a fellow worker who had fallen, striking his head on a girder, high up on an Oxford street building. At the risk of crashing to a fearful death below Locke. leapt from one girder to another, and, reaching the unconscious man, held him up until other workers came to his assistance. The King’s portrait on the obverse and a design presenting the rescue ot a miner with the inscription . ‘‘For Courage” on the reverse decorate the medal, which is made of bronze or silver. The Home Office is concerned with its award, and in the case of heroic deeds by miners, which form a large proportion of the awavds the recommendation is made through the Mines Department. Typical of many rescues performed bv miners was that of a man of sixty named Chandler, one of the first men to receive the medal. Chandler was engaged with five other men at Hoyland Silkestone Colliery when the roof fell in and a girder punctured a boiler. Scalding steam rushed through a hole and killed one of the men on the spot. The others, including Chandler, were badly hurt, but the gallant miner made his way in the dark to the top of the boiler to rescue his companions. Three times he made the journey, and it was not until he was too exhausted to move that he gave the signal to be hauled to the surface. The medal is awarded to British subjects in all parts of the Empire. On several occasions it has oeen earned in India, While engaged in charging a cupola used for melting pig iron at a foundry of the East India '’Railway Company a workman overbalanced and fell. Without a moment’s hesitation, John D’Santes leapt into the receptacle, and, tying a rope round the unconscious man, attempted to drag him out. But the deadly carbon monoxide fumes proved too powerful for him, and he, too, became unconscious. Fortunately other workmen rushed to the scene, and pulled D’Santes, who did not relax his grip on the rope, and the workman to safety. One • of the most heroic deeds recorded at the Home Office is that of Harry Denny, a worker at a West Bromwich ironworks. His foreman fell into a vessel of molten pig iron, hut when Denny attempted to pull him out tlie unfortunate man’s clothes powdered away. Denny thereupon plunged his naked hands into the molten metal, and; seizing the foreman by the shoulders, dragged him clear. If the worker dies during the performance of an heroic deed the medal is presented to his widow or nearest relation.. An engine driver’s brave action in Canada resulted in the award of the medal to Mrs William Macfall in 1911.