The first Gold Medal to be awarded after the establishment of the Lifeboat journal was not to a lifeboatman but was for an outstanding act of individual bravery following the wreck of the Royal Charter near Moelfre, in Anglesey, on 26 October 1859.

The Royal Charter was a record-breaking passenger ship: the first steam-and-sail driven liner able to promise passage between Liverpool and Melbourne, Australia, in under 60 days. She was a 320ft, 2,719 ton iron-built ship with three tall clipper masts, a single funnel and an auxiliary 200hp engine. Her maiden voyage from Liverpool in 1856 coincided with the Australian gold rush and when she left Melbourne on 26 August 1859, under the captaincy of Thomas Taylor and with a crew of more than 100, she was crowded with close to 400 passengers returning home to England, many of whom had amassed a fortune in the gold mines. There was over £300,000 worth of gold in the hold.

By the morning of 25 October, the Royal Charter had reached the Irish Sea and was forging northwards with a light south-east wind and just a ripple on the water. There was no indication to warn the captain that a hurricane, the worst in living memory, was wreaking havoc in the south and moving inexorably north. By 6.30pm on the evening on 25 October, the Royal Charter was rounding the Skerries, a group of islands at the north-west tip of Anglesey. The wind had now strengthened considerably and was blowing from the east. On she steamed almost directly into the wind along the coast of Anglesey, pitching and tossing more and more violently as the seas and wind increased.

Somewhere between 9 and 10pm, the captain lost control of his ship. The engine could no longer provide headway against the storms (sails were of no use in the head wind) and when he attempted to steer northwards away from the rocky shore on his starboard side, the ship would not respond to the helm. Instead she was being driven rapidly towards the shore by the wind, which had now moved round to the north-east and which had reached a murderous hurricane force.

In a final attempt to regain control the captain ordered certain sails to be set and maximum possible steam from the chief engineer to see if he could swing the ship's head round into the wind. If this were possible he could then set a coursewhich would take him out into the Irish Sea and clear of the land.

Three times the ship began to come round and three times the gales forced her back. Unbelievably, the wind was still strengthening. To let go an anchor was the last chance. One hundred fathoms of chain were paid out on her port anchor but, even with the engine turning to reduce the strain, the drift could not be entirely checked. Then the starboard anchor was released and fresh hope was felt on board the ship. The captain believed, or at least told his passengers he believed, that he had his ship 'fast by the nose'. This did not prevent him from sending out distress rockets which, even if they had been seen, would not have summoned help in those conditions. No lifeboat could have made it through the surf and the pilot boats already at sea were fighting for their own survival.

At 1.30am on October 26, the strain on the port anchor cable was too great and it parted. An hour later the starboard chain also succumbed and the Royal Charter was doomed. Before long every man, woman and child aboard the ship felt the shock of the sea-bed against the iron hull beneath them.

Still the captain tried to quell the growing panic. They were on sand, not rocks, the tide was receding and by daybreak everyone would be able to walk ashore. He was right about the sand but wrong about the rest. The tide was flooding and remorselessly through the night the ship was lifted by the tide and bumped across the sandy bed by the force of the storm towards the lethal rocky headland just to the north-west of the village of Moelfre.

The three huge masts of the Royal Charter had been felled by her crew to lessen wind resistance and the vessel's drift but when dawn broke everyone aboard was staggered to see that they were within 25m of the jagged rocky ledges of the land. So near and yet so far; a tumultuous sea with waves breaking 20m high against the cliffs separated the shipwrecked from the shore. Meanwhile, to seaward mountainous rollers crashed over the vessel as she lay broadside on to them.

While the hull of the ship remained intact there was still a faint hope. Villagers from Moeifre were on the cliffs now, desperately waiting to see how the people on board coutd save themselves as there was precious little help they could give from the shore. If only a line could be passed ashore from the ship, a bosun's chair could be rigged and people could be hauled to safety one by one.

On board the Royal Charter a Maltese seaman, whose original name Joie Rodriguez had been anglicised to Joseph Rodgers, volunteered to swim ashore with a line tied round his waist. Every crew-member knew that such an act was the only hope but Rodgers was the man prepared to carry it out. His strength and fearlessness had already been tested to the limit throughout the night. During the captain's desperate earlier efforts to manoeuvre out of danger Rodgers had been up and down the mast several times setting sails.

Refusing even a life-jacket, Rodgers lowered himself by a line over the side of the ship and, waiting for the right moment, let the sea take him. His shipmates were sure he was lost, almost from the moment he let himself go.

However Rodgers seemed to know what to do. He did not attempt to swim for the shore, merely to stay afloat. He allowed the huge waves to lift him up and carry him forwards and then back again towards the ship. This way he did not need to fight his way through a mass of splintered timber and tangled rigging which heaved in the water all around him.

Eventually the sea deposited him on an abrasive shelf of rock. He fought to keep his hold upon it as the receding wave dragged him angrily back towards the sea. He won the battle with the wave but the next one was now approaching and was bound to swamp him and dash him against the cliff.

Three Moelfre men had seen him and came scrambling forward to help. By linking hands in a chain the leading man was able to grab Rodgers and although the next wave arrived and covered them to the waist, they retained a hold and Rodgers was safe.

Within a short while a teninch hawser had been passed ashore and made fast to a rock. An escape route existed.The bosun's chair had been rigged from the bow of the ship and the majority of the passengers were gathered in the stern. To begin with, before they could be brought forward, an unfortunate squabble delayed the use of the bosun's chair for some 15 vital minutes. A young lady passenger, the girlfriend of the officer in charge of the device, refused through fear to be the first to be sent ashore by it.

Some riggers were as keen as she was reluctant to be the first and the result was that nobody went for some time.

While the officer, having given up persuading his girlfriend, turned his attention to organising some 70 women and children who were now on the forecastle waiting to take to the bosun's -~ chair, several riggers rushed forward and were hauled ashore on the hawser.

Almost immediately afterwards a huge wave engulfed the forecastle and the officer and all the women and children were washed to their deaths.

This was the beginning of the terrible end. Although a few members of the crew scrambled ashore by the bosun's chair after the first disaster, by now the ship had broken in two. The people in the stern section had no means of escape other than to throw themselves into the sea as the ship began rapidly to disintegrate. Even without the encumbrance of their heavy Victorian garments and, in many cases, pockets full of gold, pathetically grabbed at the last moment, the chances of survival would have been practically non-existent.

A very few did survive instant drowning or being bludgeoned to death on the rocks, but they, along with those who escaped by the hawser, numbered only 41. Well over 400 people died including every officer, every woman and every child on board.

The RNLI recognised Joseph Rodgers' bravery by awarding him the Gold Medal..