This badge was issued by the Royal Life Saving Society, a British organisation founded in 1891 by the famed swimmer William Henry. At the time, swimming was a common pastime, but there were few safety precautions taken. In the 1880s, preventable drownings were occurring at a rate of ~3000 per year. Henry and several other enthusiasts founded the society in order to remedy this, providing classes and lectures to the British population. Just a year after its foundation, half of the rescues of drowning people carried out in the UK were done by members of the society, or people who had been trained by the society. The society grew very quickly through promotional swimming galas, which were widely attended. Throughout the society's history, it maintained a close association with the Royal Family, and in 1924, it received its Royal Charter. This charged it with the following tasks:

• To promote technical education in life saving and resuscitation of the apparently drowned;

• To stimulate public opinion in favour of the general adoption of swimming and life saving as a branch of instruction in schools, colleges, etc.;
• To encourage floating, diving, plunging and such other swimming arts as would be of assistance to a person endeavouring to save life;
• To arrange and promote public lectures, demonstrations and competitions and to form classes of instruction so as to bring about a widespread and thorough knowledge of the principles which underlie the art of natation.

In the 1930s, the society sought to fulfil these tasks by expanding the areas in which it worked. While it had been providing training in lifeguarding and in artificial respiration since the beginning, the society wished to expand the provision of such training. In 1932, the Lifeguard Corps was formed. This provided training and certification standards for lifeguards at public and private pools, and for beaches. At a similar time, the society formed the Respiration Service Corps, to train people in artificial respiration and resuscitation of drowning people. This trained people in what was called the Silvester method, which involved pulling on the arms and pressing on the back to force the lungs to work. In 1934, the Corps created the Resuscitation Certificate, a certificate that showed that the holder had been fully trained in methods of artificial respiration. This badge would have been issued to members of the Respiration Service Corps as a way of showing their membership and training.