Obverse: Bow end view of a three-masted vessel under topsails in a heavy sea. In foreground a hut and a man firing a rocket apparatus, a boat pulling off. Legend: 'LIFESAVING BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK'. Exergue: 'INCD. 29TH MARCH, 1849'. Reverse: Inscription incuse within a laurel wreath tied with ribbon: 'Presented to Philip John Noel, Second Officer of the steamship Stag, in recognition of his courage and humanity while commanding a boat and aiding to rescue during heavy weather in mid-ocean the officers and crew of the foundering ship Shakspere [sic] December 21, 1889'. Fitted with a loop and blue ribbon with USA flag imposed.

Philip John Noel (1862-1916) was born in St Martin's Parish, Jersey. In 1888 he was certified by the Board of Trade to Act as Second Mate. On 21 December 1889, as Second Officer on the SS 'Stag' 1883, he commanded a boat which took off the officers and crew of the German ship 'Shakspere' 1856 which was sinking in the Atlantic in bad weather. This vessel was later sighted abandoned but still afloat. Noel received his BT certificate as First Mate in 1890 and the following year appears in the census resident in Cardiff. He married Mary Edith Jenkins there on 1 Nov 1902 and in the 1911 census the couple have two children and are running a public house. During the First World, Philip Noel was back at sea, and died in the loss of the SS 'Euterpe', Cardiff, sunk by a German mine in the North Sea on 7 January 1916. His name is recorded on the Tower Hill memorial.