Elijah Hallam Explained

Elijah Hallam (1848 – 3 March 1922) was a British miner from Derbyshire in the north of England.

He is notable as being, along with Frederick Vickers, the first recipient of the Life Saving Medal of the Most Venerable Order of St John.^[1] On 6 September 1875, at "imminent risk" to his own life, he saved 6 fellow workmen in great peril who were suspended in a broken cage in the shaft of Albert Colliery near Chesterfield.^[2] Sir Edmund Lechmere, Bt presented him with the medal at a public meeting at Whittington Moor on 18 November 1875.^[3]

References

1. The Museum of the Order of St John. 2017. Life Saving Medal of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in gold, awarded to Sergeant Mrs Julie Timms. [ONLINE] Available at: http://museumstjohn.org.uk/collections/life-saving-medal-of-the-most-venerable-order-of-the-hospital-of-st-john-of-jerusalem-awarded-in-the-order-of-gold-to-sergeant-mrs-julie-timms/. [Accessed 4 September 2017].
2. F. Trotman, A Year in the Life of Victorian Britain, Amberley Publishing Limited, 2015
3. J L. Bronstein, Caught in the Machinery: Workplace Accidents and Injured Workers in Nineteenth-century Britain, Stanford University Press, 2008, p.76