BB Gazette Vol.17 No.2 – The Brigade Executive have awarded the Cross for Heroism to Private Moody Spratt, aged 15, 37th Belfast Company, For attempting to save a Boy from drowning in the river Lagan on 21st August, 1908.

Weekly Telegraph 29th August 1908 – A sad fatality occurred in Belfast this evening. A boy seven years of age, being drowned in the River Lagan, near the Orneau Bridge…. The little fellow, with two other boys about his own age, seems to have been playing on the County Down side of the river…. And the assumptions that…. The boy overbalanced himself…. Along the river in the immediate vicinity other lads were playing about, and two of them Moody Spratt,…. And James Lomae,….  Rushed to the spot. By this time Vernard had sunk, but the two boys, throwing off their coats, instantly plunged into the water at the spot where the body had been seen…. Time and time again the boys went under the water, but their brave efforts were unhappily without avail. When Vernard’s body was recovered later in the evening life was extinct.

Royal Humane Society – Award number 36299