Commander Edward Gilbert Francis Law entered the Royal Navy as a Cadet in September 1859, gaining advancement to Sub. Lieutenant in March 1866 and to Lieutenant in June 1869. In the latter rank he served aboard H.M.S. Himalaya during the South Africa operations of 1879, finally being placed on the Retired List as a Commander in January 1890. Just over a year later, in the Summer of 1891, he plunged into the river at Galway, fully dressed, and saved a boy who was in difficulties some 20 yards from the river bank. The latter deed won him his second and final award, the Royal Humane Society's Bronze Medal.