Collector pays £3,600 for rescuers’ awards
A TREASURE trove of bravery awards relating to a First World War airship crash has fetched £3,600 at auction, nearly double the estimate, almost a century after the tragedy.
Brough gasworks manager Frederick Higham and his son Arthur were lauded for swimming out to the wreckage of the C11 airship which ditched in the Humber on a test flight in July 1917, just a few weeks after crashing at Scarborough.
Four were killed in the crash, but together father and son managed to rescue two crewmen.
Their actions won them a mass of awards; both were presented with inscribed 18-carat gold pocket watches and certificates by the South Hunsley Constabulary while Arthur was awarded the Boy Scouts Silver Cross for Gallantry, with a certificate signed by Baden Powell, a Silver Fox award and a gold fob for his new pocket watch. His father was awarded an OBE.
The collection was bought by an unnamed collector of Scouting memorabilia at a Dee Atkinson and Harrison sale in Driffield on Friday.
Auctioneer Graham Paddison said the buyer had been determined to acquire the collection.
He said: “It is something which crossed so many boundaries in collecting fields; it was steeped in local history, there were the bravery awards, the airship connection. There was a tremendous amount of interest.”