GRACE DARLING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 5

GRACE DARLING

VICTORIAN HEROINE

THE ODDITY OF HER FAME

This is a year of .centenaries, and it may not be amiss, therefore, to recall that it is likewise the centenary of Grace Darling, writes F. S. Burnell in the "Sydney Morning Herald." To our grandparents the name of this now almost forgotten heroine was a household word, a synonym of all that was noblest in woman's nature: the present generation, accustomed to feminine prowess and endurance in almost every branch of human activity, may possibly require to be reminded of the facts.

One hundred years ago—on Wednesday, September 7, 1838—-the steamer Forfarshire, bound from Hull to Dundee, struck in tempestuous weather on the Fame Islands, which lie some five miles off the little town of Bamborough, on the Northumberland coast. The ship broke in half, and more than two-thirds of her passengers and crew were drowned.

In/ the grey light of the early morning the wreck was observed by the lighthousekeeper, William Darling, and his daughter, Grace, who,.chiefly at the latter's instigation, put off in a small boat, and, at imminent danger to themselves, succeeded in rescuing nine persons, one of them a woman. FOUND THEMSELVES FAMOUS. It was by no means the first time that father and daughter had risked their lives in the same way, but, for some-reason, the Forfarshire affair caught the attention of the public, and the two Darlings, considerably to their bewilderment, awoke like Byron to find themselves famous. From end to end of the kingdom the heroism of Grace Darling especially was the one topic of .the. day. Every scrap of information concerning her was seized upon and featured in the Press with ah avidity that a modern film star might envy. * •

Photographs and paintings of her were made and sold by thousands, and the writer can well remember a chromo-Hthograph of his nursery days which, entirely disregarding her father's share in the exploit, represented the dauntless girl single-handedly facing the raging billows in her frail coble. A theatrical manager in London offered her £800 merely to sit in a boat on the stage, and an equally enterprising and unsuccessful attempt to secure her appearance was made by the proprietor of a travelling circus at Edinburgh. .

In loftier circles recognition was equally spontaneous. The Treasury made a grant. The Boyal Humane Society voted her its gold medal, and other societies followed suit. A newlylaunched ship was christened by her j name, and a public subscription in her favour met with immediate and enthusiastic support. The , bhigbhestpersonages in the land were not behindhand. The Duchess of Northumberland-invit-ed the lighthousekeeper's daughter to Alnwick Castle, and from Windsor itself came a tangible token of the Queen's gracious appreciation. POETS LEND A HAND. The Victorian. Muse, as a matter of course, gave to rapture' all her trembling strings. Even the veteran Wordsworth, then nearly 70 years of age, was moved to bestride a limping Pegasus and-hymn the gallantry of Grace-Dar-ling in ninety-four lines of very indifferent blank verse, in which the waves are invited to shout and the fierce winds to pipe a glad song of triumph. Even the "screaming seamews" are brought to. joiri in-the concert, while a. pious-wish is expressed that some immortal voice

"Might carry to the clouds and to the stars. Yea, to celestial choirs, Grace Darling's name." A less illustrious writer professed to supply the actual words of the heroine on the great adventure: Mother, adieu, a short adieu; Your prayers will rise to.Heaven. Father, to you—your child and you— Power to save is given. I have no fear, no maiden fear; My heart is firm to the deed, I shed no tear, no coward tear; I've strength in the time of need. A female bard, after comparing Grace —somewhat oddly—with bread cast upon the, waters, assured her that A human soul to' .life hath risen Where'er thy wing hath waved. Another poet, after dithering dithyrambically through a dozen stanzas of the sickliest sentimentality^ pleaded in reward for a single tress of Grace's hair. Alas, he was not the only one to make such a request. More than ten thousand of her admirers, it is said, wrote offering up to £5 for a lock of her hair, and a newspaper report was even current that in consequence of a too-ready compliance with these applications Grace had been left practically bald!

CROPPED CURLS. Nor was the story so wild as it might appear. True, Grace herself, for the most part, wisely declined to part with her tresses, but an unfortunate younger brother, who had just returned from a voyage before the mast, was promptly pounced on as a substitute by a horde of female relic-hunters, who cropped his curls almost to the bare skull. In justice to Grace herself, it must be said that she appears to have been as sensible as she was brave and unselfish, and to the end of her days she remained surprisingly unaffected by the hysteria of her worshippers. Unfortunately, her days were already numbered. Only four years later, in 1842, she died of consumption at the age of 25, and was buried in the cemetery of Bamborough. Surmounted by a recumbent effigy under a Gothic canopy, her. tomb is easily the most conspicuous monument in the churchyard. Beside it stands the church, dedicated to St. Aidan, and one of the finest and most ancient in Northumberland, [while from the rocky height beyond [the village the huge and forbidding mass of Bamborough Castle stares grimly out over the sea to where the Fame Islands and their lighthouse still j recall the heroic memory of Grace [Darling. ■