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	Gallantry		Gallantry

	Samuel Booker
	Edward Medal
	Date:	14 May 1937
	Colliery:	Littleton Colliery, South Staffordshire
	Occupation:

 

Whitehall, January 22, 1938.

His Majesty The King has been graciously pleased to award the Edward Medal to David Noel Booker and Samuel Booker, in recognition of their gallantry in the following circumstances:—

On the afternoon of the I4th May, 1937, three men were at work dismantling the plant at a conveyor face in a gate, at a distance of some 70-80 yards from the main level, in the Littleton Colliery, South Staffordshire. Fire­damp appeared to be spreading in the gate, since, at about 8 p.m., a fireman set off from the level to see what the men were doing up the gate and found that his lamp was extinguished at about 20 yards from the level. Between this time and about midnight, when full rescue apparatus became available and the bodies were recovered, efforts at rescue were made by a succession of men, some of whom themselves collapsed and thereby added to the task of later rescuers: of these one, Mr. Walmsley, the Under-Manager, himself lost his life, thus bringing the death roll to four. In these operations the brothers Booker were outstanding. Each of them forced his way up the gate on four or five separate occasions, and they were jointly or severally responsible for extricating four earlier rescuers who had succumbed to the gas; all of these survived except Mr. Walmsley, the Under-Manager. On all of these occasions the brothers Booker, who seem to have been men of high resisting powers, displayed great courage, which is to be rated even more highly as it was reinforced by an almost equal measure of coolness and forethought.

Source: London Gazette (04 Feb 1938)

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