AT the end of the first Annual Report of the Institution, published on 10th March, 1825, is a list of thirty-two services for which it had given rewards during its first year. The first of these services took place on 10th July, 1824, and for it the Institution awarded its first gold medal (or as it was then called medallion) for gallantry in saving life from shipwreck.

The vessel was a Swedish brig wrecked off Christchurch, on the Hampshire coast, and the medallion was awarded to Captain Fremantle, R.N. The brief story of the service as told in the Report is as follows :—• " Captain Freemantle, seeing the brig broadside on the shore, with loss of main mast, and striking on the shore so heavily that it was feared she would go to pieces, thought it practicable to swim on board her, if he could get through the surf, which, fastening a small line to his body, he effected; but the crew were afraid to adopt Captain Freemantle's directions, and (after, cutting the boats clear but the decks falling in, and the sea making a breach over her, they filled and were rendered useless) he was compelled, for his own preservation, to leave the wreck, and endeavour to get on shore ; which being unable to accomplish by his own exertions, he was hauled on shore by the line, in an exhausted and insensible state. The crew eventually got on shore on the wreck of the mast, after the vessel had parted." Evidently that day a gale was blowing alTalong the south coast, for at Mount's Bay in Cornwall, and at Brighton, there were services, resulting in the rescue ofeleven lives, for which the Institution awarded its first three Silver Medals.

When the Institution decided to invite to the Centenary Meeting the descendants of those who had taken part in the origi- nal meeting on 4th March, 1824, it wrote to Admiral the Hon. Sir Edmund Fre- mantle, G.C.B., now in his eighty-ninth year, thinking that he might be a member of the same family as Captain Freemantle.

It found, as the Lord Mayor described in his speech, that he was not only Captain Freemantle's nephew, but had served with him sixty years ago. We had never hoped when attempting to reconstruct the past at our Centenary Meeting that we should be so fortunate as to have with us one who knew and served with the Institution's first Gold Medallist, and Admiral Fremantle's letter giving us the particulars of his uncle deserves to be put on permanent record in the Journal. He wrote :•— " I can give you the details about the Captain ' Freemantle,' to whom you refer as the first Gold Medallist.

" It was my uncle, then a commander in the Coast Guard, who performed the feat referred to—his name was Charles Howe Fremantle, he became a Port Captain in 1826. I was his Flag Lieu- tenant in the Channel '58-60, and he sub- sequently became C.-in-C. at Plymouth and died as Sir Charles Fremantle, G.C.B. I knew of the circumstances referred to. My uncle saw a good deal of service. Fremantle, in W. Australia, was named after him.

" If I am invited, I will attend your Mansion House meeting. I have not the honour of a Life-boat Institution Medal, but I hold the Gold Medal of the Ship- wrecked" Mariners' Society and the Stan- hope Medal (Gold) of the Humane Society." Vice-Admiral Sir Sydney R. Fremantle, Sir Edmund's son, also wrote :— " I have made enquiry from my father, Sir Edmund Fremantle, and find that your first Gold Medallist was my great- uncle, afterwards Admiral Sir Charles Fremantle, who commanded the Channel Fleet, and was Commander-in-Chief at Devonport.".