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." Inscription on edge: 'LIEUT. R.A. NEWMAN R.N. 22 JAN 1846'. Suspended by a cusped bar from a dark blue ribbon.

Lieutenant Robert Newman (1796-1883) was in command of the Dymchurch coastguard station in January 1846, when he leaned that the pilot boat ‘New Flora’ of Dover had been wrecked at Dungeness. A crew member called Pain had succeeded in swimming ashore in search of help. The coastguard’s boat hauled a mile and a half and launched with a crew of five men. When they reached the ‘New Flora’, they found the ship’s boat had been washed away and the sea was breaking over the vessel. Five crew members had been hanging onto the rigging for three hours. Newman’s boat took them off with difficulty and got safely back to shore through heavy surf.

Robert Amyett Newman (1796-1883) had an active early career as a midshipman during the Napoleonic Wars. In ‘Courageux’, he was present during Strachan’s action on 4 November 1805, and during the capture of ‘Marengo’ and ‘Belle Poule’ in 1806. During the War of 1812, he served in ‘San Domingo’ the flagship of Sir Borlase Warren. In 1815 in the ‘Phoenix’ Charles John Austen, he was engaged in anti-piracy duties in the Greek Islands. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 11 December 1827. From 1843 he commanded coastguard stations, at Dymchurch and Cheriton. He was awarded the Royal Humane Society medal for rescuing the crew of the pilot boat ‘New Flora’ after she was wrecked off Dungeness in 1846.
Lieutenant Newman married in 1838, Jane Coxworthy also born in Stoke Damerel, Devon and in the year after her death in 1877, he remarried Emily Esther Terry who survived him. He retired to Chelsea and died in Hounslow.