AT their meeting last May the committee of management decided that officers and members of life-boat crews who are awarded the Institution's gold medal, the highest award which it can make for gallantry in saving life, may, like those who win the Victoria Cross, receive an annuity of £10 a year, with an additional £5 for each second-service clasp.

It was also decided that similar pensions may be granted to the widows of officers and members of life-boat crews to whom the gold medal has been posthumously awarded.

Four living members of the life-boat service have won the gold medal, and will receive this annuity. They are: Coxswain Henry G. Blogg, of Cromer, who won the medal in 1917, and a bar to it in 1927 ; ex-Coxswain J. T. Swan, of Lowestoft, who won it in 1922; ex-Coxswain William Fleming, of Great Yarmouth and Gorleston, who won it in 1922; and ex-Second- Coxswain H. Roberts, of Moelfre, Anglesey, who won it in 1927.

The annuity will also be given to the widow of the late Captain Owen Jones, of Moelfre, Anglesey, who won the medal in 1927, and to the widow of the late Coxswain Robert Patton, of Jlunswick, who was awarded it posthumously this year. In all these cases the annuity will date from the year in which the medal was won..