An Excellent Mercantile Marine War Medal and Contemporary Lusitania Medal Copy to Second Steward Robert Daniel Fletcher Chisholm, who saw the approach of the German torpedo on 7 May 1915, and alerted his colleagues in the moments before impact. Giving instructions to passengers during the ensuing panic and boarding Lifeboat No.13, he survived the ordeal and continued to serve aboard the Ophir, Orduna and Ashantian, comprising: Mercantile Marine War Medal, 1914-1919 (Robert D. F. Chisholm); The Sinking of the Lusitania, a cast English-made copy of the German medal by K. Goetz, in original cardboard case with folded interior letter, also offered with various postcards, stamps, an original Cunard Line booklet for the S.S. Albania, copies of Esquire Magazine (December 1936), and the Reader’s Digest (January 1937) including the article ‘Finding the Lusitania’, and other related material; Lightly toned, good very fine, and scarce to a Lusitania survivor (lot) Chief Steward Robert Daniel Fletcher Chisholm was born on 26 July 1882 at Toxteth Park, Liverpool, the son of Peter Fletcher, a marine engineer, and Mary Jane Chisholm. Joining the Mercantile Marine, he was serving aboard the R.M.S. Lusitania as Second Steward on 7 May 1915 when it was attacked by the German submarine U-20, ten miles from the Old Head of Kinsale, off the Irish coast. Spotting the wake of the first torpedo, Chisholm warned his Chief Steward of the incoming impact, hitting her starboard, and after the second explosion he guided survivors towards the lifeboats – of which only six of the forty were able to be put afloat. The great ship sank within just 18 minutes, and two hours passed before the first fishing boat arrived to recover the survivors, and bodies, in the water nearby. In total, 1,201 men, women and children died in the sinking out of 1,962 persons on board. A report concerning the recipient, published in the Manchester Courier, of 11 May, 1915, reads as follows: ‘Robert Chisholm, a second steward, was next examined, and deposed that he was on the B deck when the Lusitania was torpedoed. He saw the wake of the torpedo as it approached, but he saw no sign of a periscope. He heard a second explosion following the first. The ship was struck amidships. Stewards and stewardesses gave instant instructions to the passengers to get on their lifebelts. Witness dropped into a lifeboat in which there were 45 persons, 36 of these being passengers, and others on board included sailors and stewardesses. The boat in which witness was drifted about till six o'clock in the evening and was then picked up. He took on board four persons before being finally rescued. With regard to threats against the ship witness saw nothing but what appeared in the New York papers the day before sailing.’ Robert Chisholm remained in the Merchant Navy, rising to Chief Steward aboard the steamer Orduna (1918), the R.M.S. Mauretania (1926), aboard the S.S. Ashantian. He died aboard this latter vessel at Koko, Nigeria, of Malaria and Heart Failure, in 1936.

Estimate: GBP 400 - 600