Obverse: A nude boy with short cloak flying out from his shoulder, blowing on a torch held in his right hand'. Legend: 'LATEAT SCINTILLVLA FORSAN'. Exergue: 'SOC . LOND . IN . RESVSCITAT . INTERMORTVORVM INSTIT . MDCCLXXIV'. Reverse: Within an oak wreath tied with ribbon, name of recipient and inscription. Legend: 'HOC PRETIVM CIVE SERVATO TVLIT'. Inscription: 'VIT . OB SERV . D . D . SOC . REG . HVM'. [5 straight lines]. Inscription on edge: 'WILLIAM SWINNEY 1ST AUGUST 1908'. Suspended by a cusped bar from a dark blue ribbon.

Awarded to William Swinney (1882-1915) for rescuing a youth named Boocock who had fallen 20 feet from a jetty into the Tyne at North Shields. Swinney jumped in fully clothed and successfully saved him. Swinney was born in North Shields in 1882. The 1901 census lists him as a mariner, living in Tynemouth, son of William Swinney, also a mariner. He joined the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers in the same year, his occupation listed as ‘fireman’. In 1904 he married Isabella Fell and in the 1911 census was still living in Tynemouth and working as a labourer in the dry dock. In 1913 he remarried Mary J. Henderson. While serving as a private in the Hampshire Regiment during the First World War, he was killed at Gallipoli 30 October 1915.