There have been a number of different types of honours and awards given by the state and others in recognition of merchant mariners’ bravery at sea since the mid 19^th century. Unfortunately, finding information on the circumstances of such events can prove to be far from simple.

Similarly, recorded on some officers’ certificates of service and competency were small Board of Trade stamps with details of lesser awards by grateful foreign governments, civil authorities etc. One example read: ‘Certified that a diploma was presented by the Royal Humane Society to David Francis James ... in recognition of his gallantry in rescuing a soldier who had fallen overboard from the SS "Rewa" at Karachi’. The Marine Department of the Board of Trade had administered the system of civil awards to merchant mariners since the mid 19^th century and theoretically these lesser awards should have been recorded in one of their ledgers entitled ‘Gallantry at Sea Awards’. Unfortunately, this does not seem to have been kept efficiently. Covering the period from the 1860s to the early 1900s, with some later entries, I have tried to match six such entries on officers’ certificates (spread over a period of thirty years) with entries in this ledger and have not managed to find even one in the ledger. There were also sections in this same ledger for state issued gallantry medals (see below) and also certificates from the St. John’s Ambulance Association.

There were also Board of Trade medals and Albert medals issued and as far as I can make out searches for these awards too can be difficult. There are some files within the Marine Department of the Board of Trade’s correspondence, all of which is at the P.R.O. and there are also two separate B. of T. documents, one a register and the other a photograph album, dealing with the Albert Medal. However, the latter records are not exhaustive and require ‘special production’.