“MAN THE LIFEBOAT!”

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13801, 19 November 1942, Page 3

“MAN THE LIFEBOAT!”

RESCUE OF WRECKED

mariners

Grand Men of Dauntless Courage

Institution’s Fine Record

No distinction of race or nation is made by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of Great Britain and Ireland. Founded in 1824, this charitable society maintains a great national and international service. Seamen and airmen from any land, including Britain’s enemies, are rescued from the sea with courage and devotion, writes Arthur Lamsley in ‘The Christian Science Monitor.” Those who man the lifeboats are all volunteers, mostly fishermen, imbued with the foundation principle of the Institution, taken from St. John, 15:13: ‘‘Greater love hath no love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

In the 115 years of its existence, up to the outbreak of war, these lifeboat men saved more than G 6,000 men. During this war, nearly 5000 ■have been rescued, not including the 4500 British and French soldiers saved by the lifeboats during the evacuation from Dunkirk. Out of this latter number 2800 were brought from the beaches by the Ramsgate lifeboat, and 600 by her sister ship from Max-gate. In normal times, the Institution’s work is done with an annual expenditure of approximately £250,000. This sum provides for the designing andn building of the lifeboat fleet, rewards to crews for every launch, compensation if they are injured on service, and, should they lost their lives, pensions for their widows and dependents as if they had been sailors, soldiers, or airmen killed in action.

Much of the annual expenditure is collected by voluntary workers. When the Institution found it had lost one of its boats at the evacuation of Dunkirk, had others damaged, and faced a loss of £BOOO, the people of Manchester and district collected £IO,OOO to make good the deficit.

It was a resident of the Isle of Man, Sir William Hillary, who organised the rescue of shipwrecked mariners a national duty. With the aid of frfiends, he founded the Institution, on March 4, 1824. The founder was head of the Isle of Man lifeboat, and in 1830 received the gold medal of the Institution he had founded, for the gallant rescue of the entire crew of the Royal Mail ship, St. George, which struck a rock in Douglas Bay. Though he received injuries on this occasion, he helped “man the liefboat” ’till he was 64, and took part in saving 305 persons.

It was in 1838 that the Silver Medal of the Institution was awarded to William Darling, lighthouse keeper, and his daughter, Grace, for the seemingly impossible rescue in an ordinary open boat of nine, members of the ship Forfarshire. Lionel Lukin, by trade a London coachbuilder, was the first Englishman who devoted his time to the construction of a lifeboat. After experimenting from 1784 to 1786, he converted a coble into a lifeboat, which served on the coast of Northumberland at Hamburg for several

years. •*- In 1789, at South Shields on the River Tyne, another lifeboat, the Original, was launched. This was the outcome of the pooling of many designs from local shipbuilders foi which a prize of two guineas was offered by some local merchants. A curious fact about this competition was that no shipbuilder submitted a winning design, and the prize was halved to a house decorator and teacher of singing, William Wouldhave, who worked upon the selfrighting principle in boat design which formed the basis of the Original. The design to wTiich eventually the Original was built was modelled in clay, and the builder, Henry Greathead, gave her a curved keel. It is of historic interest in boat building that the Original served off the coasts surrounding the Tyne estuary for 49 years, saving hundreds of lives before being flung on the rocks and smashed to pieces. At this time, through the generosity of Lloyd s. who donated £ 2,000 for the building of lifeboats. Henry Greathead had built 31 lifeboats by the end of 1 802—18 for England. 5 for Scotland, and 8 for foreign countries. These boats were propelled with ° a The Duke of Northumberland, a First Lord of the Admiralty, became President in 1853. He offered a prize of 100 guineas for the design of a new type of lifeboat, which had to be self-righting. Out of 240 competitive drawings from all parts of the world, the winning design was

that of James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth, whose boat embodied all William Wouldhave’s ideas, with many improvements.

Modern motor lifeboats around Great Britain to-day number more than 130. The average-sized boat is equipped with two 80 h.p. watertight engines, which will continue running if the engine room is flooded. Her speed is knots, and she can take aboard 130 people.

Besides being subscribed for by public flag days and annual subscriptions of small sums, lifeboats are often given by individuals in memory of some member of their family, by commercial houses, such as Lloyd’s, and by patriotic associations, like the Girl Guides, who recently gave £ 5,000 to buy a 35ft. Gin. motor lifeboat called Guide of Dunkirk, now on service off the Cornish coast. Yet the finest lifeboats are of little use without the grand men of dauntless courage who voluntarily crew them around the coasts. Coxswain Knight of Ramsgate, Coxswain Parker, Ramsgate, both of whom won the D.S.M. for their great work of rescue at Dunkirk; Coxswain Cross, Humber, who won the George Medal, and Henry Blogg, coxswain of Cromer lifeboat, who has won more honours than any man in the service—the George Cross, the British Empire Medal, and the Institution’s Gold Medal three times, its silver medal four times.