BRONZE MEDAL SERVICE AT THE MUMBLES JANUARY 20TH. - THE MUMBLES, GLAMORGANSHIRE. Just beforeseven o’clock in the morning signals of distress in Swansea Bay could be seen from The Mumbles, and the motor life-boat Edward Prince of Wales was launched. It was still pitch dark, and the darkness was increased by mist and squalls of rain. A whole gale was blowing from the south-east and there was a heavy breaking sea.

All that the life-boat had to guide her was a feeble morse lamp on the vessel in distress, and she found her in the nick of time. The vessel was the steamer Cornish Rose, of Liverpool, of 700 tons. She had two anchors down, but they were dragging, and her windlass was not working. She was very near the shore and was rolling heavily.

Her master had given up hope of saving her, and was just on the point of abandoning her. She might strike at any moment, and he feared that she would at once break up. She had only a fifteen-foot boat, and even had her crew succeeded in reaching the shore in her, lives would almost certainly have been lost when they attempted to land in the heavy seas.

The coxswain of the life-boat saw that the only thing to be done was to go alongside without delay. This he did with great skill and boldness, and at great risk. The life-boat was shipping so much water that her crew was in danger of being washed out of her, and the ordinary perils of the sea were greatly increased by the coast defences.

At this point these defences consisted of iron rails driven into the foreshore and sticking out of it. The foreshore was thickly set with them.

From the life-boat they could not be seen. Her crew knew that they were there. They knew that had she struck one of them it would have ripped her open.

In spite of these dangers the lifeboat came safely alongside the Cornish Rose. One by one the ten men of the steamer’s crew jumped into her, and twenty minutes later she was making for Swansea again. She arrived just before nine o’clock in the morning.

It was a very bold and skilful rescue, and the Institution made the following rewards : To COXSWAIN WILLIAM JOHN GAMMON, the bronze medal for gallantry,with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To ROBERT TREVOR WILLIAMS, the motor-mechanic, the bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To the coxswain and each member of the crew, a special reward of £1 in addition to the ordinary scale reward of £1 8s. 6d. Standard rewards to crew and launchers, £17 9s. 11d. ; additional rewards to crew, £8 ; total rewards, £25 9s. 11d..