CHAPTER XV.

“MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!”

The Englishman’s direct interest in the Sea—The History of the Life-boat and its Work—Its Origin—A Coach-builder the First Inventor—Lionel Lukin’s Boat—Royal Encouragement—Wreck of the _Adventure_—The Poor Crew Drowned in Sight of Thousands—Good out of Evil—The South Shields Committee and their Prize Boat—Wouldhave and Greathead—The latter Rewarded by Government, &c.—Slow Progress of the Life-boat Movement—The Old Boat at Redcar—Organisation of the National Life-boat Institution—Sir William Hillary’s Brave Deeds—Terrible Losses at the Isle of Man—Loss of Three Life-boats—Reorganisation of the Society—Immense Competition for a Prize—Beeching’s “Self-righting” Boats—Buoyancy and Ballast—Dangers of the Service—A Year’s Wrecks.

The history of the life-boat is one that concerns every Englishman. In this isle of the sea, our own beloved Britain, our sympathies are constantly excited on behalf of those who suffer from shipwreck. It would not be too much to say that one-half the population of the United Kingdom have some direct interest in this matter. Let us not be misunderstood. Pecuniary interests in shipping are held here more largely than in any other country, but we are not all shipowners or merchants. But how many of us have some brother or friend a seafarer! Of the writer’s own direct relatives six have travelled and voyaged to very far distant lands, and the friends of whom the same might be said would aggregate several score. This is no uncommon case.

The origin of the life-boat, as now understood, is of very modern date. Those who would study the matter in its entirety cannot do better than consult the work(71) from which the larger part of the material incorporated in the present chapter is derived. One of the very earliest inventors of a life-boat was Mr. Lionel Lukin, a coach-builder of Long Acre, who turned his attention to the subject in 1784, from purely benevolent motives. The then Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), who knew Lukin personally, not only encouraged him to test his inventions, but offered to pay the expenses. Lukin purchased a Norway yawl, to the outer frame of which he added a projecting gunwale of cork, tapering from nine inches amidships to very little at the bows and stern. Hollow water-tight enclosures gave it great buoyancy, while ballast sufficient for stability was afforded by a heavy false keel of iron. On this principle several boats were constructed, and found to be, as the inventor describes them, “unimmergible.” The Rev. Dr. Shairp, of Bamborough, hearing of the invention, and having charge of a charity for saving life at sea, sent a boat to Lukin to be made “unimmergible.” This was done, and satisfactory accounts were afterwards received of the altered boat, which was reported to have saved several lives in the first year of its use. The Admiralty and Trinity House would have nothing to do with it, in spite of the Prince of Wales’ interest in the matter. It has been said that a committee is a body without a conscience; it was true in those good old days. Lukin retired from business in 1824, and went to live at Hythe in Kent, where, ten years after, he died; the inscription on his tomb in Hythe churchyard says that he was the first to build a life-boat.

Notwithstanding Lukin’s increasing efforts to bring his life-boats into general use, hardly any progress had been made in their general adoption till 1789, when the _Adventure_, of Newcastle, was wrecked at the mouth of the Tyne. While this vessel lay stranded on a dangerous sand at the entrance of the river, in the midst of tremendous breakers, her crew “dropped off one by one from the rigging,” only three hundred yards from the shore, and in the presence of thousands of spectators. This horrible disaster led to good results, for a committee was immediately appointed at a meeting of the inhabitants of South Shields, and premiums offered for the best model of a life-boat “calculated to brave the dangers of the sea, particularly of broken water.” From many plans submitted two were selected, those of Mr. William Wouldhave and Mr. Henry Greathead. The idea of the first is said to have been suggested by the following circumstance. Wouldhave had been asked to assist a woman in putting a “skeel” of water on her head, when he noticed that she had a piece of a broken wooden dish lying in the water, which floated with the points upwards, and turning it over several times, he found that it always righted itself. Greathead’s model had a curved instead of a straight keel, and he, as the only practical boatbuilder who had competed, was awarded the premium, some of Wouldhave’s ideas in regard to the use of cork being incorporated. This first boat, thirty feet in length, had a cork lining twelve inches thick, reaching from the deck to the thwarts, and a cork fender outside sixteen inches deep, four inches wide, and twenty-one feet long, nearly 7 cwts. of cork being fitted to the boat altogether. Greathead’s curved keel was, however, the main point, and he is regarded as the inventor of the first practicable life-boat. From 1791 to 1797 his first boat was the means of saving the whole or larger part of the crews of five ships. Notwithstanding all this, no other life-boat was built till 1798, when the then Duke of Northumberland ordered one to be built at his own expense, which in two years saved the crews of three vessels. Others were soon after constructed, and before the end of 1803 Greathead built no less than thirty-one, eight of which were for foreign countries. In the beginning of 1802, when two hundred lives had been saved at the entrance of the Tyne alone, Greathead applied to Parliament for a national reward. Possibly it is more remarkable that he obtained it. £1,200 was voted to him, to which the Trinity House, Lloyd’s, and the Society of Arts added substantial presents. The Emperor of Russia sent a diamond ring to the inventor.

After this, one might have reasonably thought that life-boats had become a recognised institution and a national necessity. Not so. For years afterwards there was hardly an advance made, and there was no organised society to work them. The Government was apathetic. In 1810, one of Greathead’s life-boats, carried overland to Hartley on the coast of Northumberland, rescued the crews of several fishing-boats. On returning toward the shore, the boat got too near a fatal rock-reef, and was split in halves; thirty-four poor fellows—a moment before the savers and the saved—were drowned. The authority before cited says that even now several of Greathead’s boats—exclusively rowing boats—are to be found on the coast; the oldest one is that in the possession of the boatmen at Redcar, it having been built in 1802. On seeing this fine old life-boat, which had saved some scores of lives, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe composed some years ago the following verses, which were set to music:—

“The Life-boat! Oh, the Life-boat! We all have known so long, A refuge for the feeble, The glory of the strong. Twice thirty years have vanished, Since first upon the wave She housed the drowning mariner, And snatched him from the grave. * * * * The voices of the rescued, Their numbers may be read, The tears of speechless feeling Our wives and children shed; The memories of mercy In man’s extremest need, All for the dear old Life-boat Uniting seem to plead.”

As already stated, the important movement for saving life from shipwreck languished for some time. To Sir William Hillary and Thomas Wilson, then one of the Members of Parliament for London, is due the organisation of that most excellent society which has done more in the cause of humanity than, perhaps, any other whatever, and has done it on means which even to-day are too limited. Sir William Hillary was not a talker or subscriber merely, but had been personally active in saving life. When a Government cutter, the _Vigilant_, was wrecked in Douglas Bay, Isle of Man, where he was then residing, he was one of the foremost in rescuing a part of the crew. Listen to our authority: “Between the years 1821 and 1846, no fewer than 144 wrecks had taken place on the island, and 172 lives were lost; while the destruction of property was estimated at a quarter of a million. In 1825, when the _City of Glasgow_ steamer was stranded in Douglas Bay, Sir William Hillary assisted in saving the lives of sixty-two persons; and in the same year eleven men from the brig Leopard, and nine from the sloop _Fancy_, which became a total wreck. In 1827-32, Sir William, accompanied by his son, saved many other lives; but his greatest success was on the 20th of November, 1830, when he saved in the life-boat twenty-two men, the whole of the crew of the mail steamer _St. George_, which became a total wreck on St. Mary’s Rock. On this occasion he was washed overboard among the wreck, with other three persons, and was saved with great difficulty, having had six of his ribs fractured.” No wonder that a genuine hero of this character should have succeeded in obtaining the assistance and encouragement of His Majesty King George IV., and any number of royal highnesses, archbishops, bishops, noblemen, and other distinguished people,(72) when the formation of a “Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck” was mooted. The Society was immediately organised, and the receipts for the first year of its existence were £9,800 odd. The Committee, in their first report, were able to state that they had built and stationed twelve life-boats, while, doubtless, from their good example, thirty-nine life-boats had been stationed on our shores by benevolent individuals and associations not connected with the Institution. In its early days, the Society assisted local bodies to place life-boats on the coast, such being independent of its control. The good work done by the Association in its early days is indicated in the following statement. In the second annual report the Committee showed that up to that period the Society had contributed to the saving of 342 lives from shipwreck, either by its own life-saving apparatus or by other means, for which it had granted rewards. And its total revenue for the second year was only £3,392 7s. 5d.!(73) For fifteen years afterwards the annual receipts were still smaller.

Between 1841 and 1850 the Institution lost three life-boats, and this was the smallest part of the loss. In October, 1841, one of the boats at Blyth, Northumberland, while being pulled against a strong wind, was struck by a heavy sea, causing her to run stern under, and to half fill with water. A second sea struck her, and she capsized. Ten men were drowned. The second case occurred at Robin Hood’s Bay, on the coast of Yorkshire, in February, 1843. The life-boat went off to the assistance of a stranded vessel, the _Ann_, of London, during a fresh northerly gale. The life-boat had got alongside the wreck, and was taking the crew off, when, as far as can be understood, several men jumped into her at the moment when a great wave struck her, and she capsized. Many of the crew got on her bottom, while three remained underneath her, and in this state she drifted towards the shore on the opposite side of the bay. On seeing the accident from the shore, five gallant fellows launched a boat and tried to pull off to the rescue, but had hardly encountered two seas, when she was turned _end over end_, two of her crew being drowned. An officer of the Coastguard service and eleven men lost their lives on this occasion; a few were saved, coming to shore safely on the bottom of the life-boat, and even under it, in its reversed condition.

A still worse accident occurred, in December, 1849, to the South Shields life-boat, which had gone out with twenty-four experienced pilots to the aid of the _Betsy_ of Littlehampton, stranded on the Herd Sand. She had reached the wreck, and was lying alongside, though badly secured. The shipwrecked men were about to descend into the boat, when a heavy sea, recoiling from the bows of the vessel, lifted her on end, and a second sea completed the work of destruction by throwing her completely over. She ultimately drifted ashore. Twenty out of twenty-four on board were drowned. On seeing the accident, two other life-boats immediately dashed off, and saved four of the pilots and the crew of the _Betsy_.

The year 1850 marked an epoch in the history of life-boats, for then the Institution was thoroughly re-organised. It was arranged that the boats should be periodically inspected by qualified officers, and that a fixed scale of payment, both for actual service or quarterly exercise, should be made to the coxswains and crews.(74) His Grace the late Duke of Northumberland offered a prize of one hundred guineas for the best model of a life-boat, and a like sum towards constructing a boat on that model. No less than 280 plans and models were sent in, not merely from all parts of the United Kingdom, but from France, Holland, Germany, and the United States. After some six months’ detailed examination on the part of the committee, Mr. James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth, was awarded the prize. That gentleman constructed several boats shortly afterwards, embodying most or all of the leading improvements, and was the first to build a “self-righting” life-boat. All of the Institution’s modern boats are on this principle.

“The chief peculiarity of a life-boat,” says our authority, “which distinguishes it from all ordinary boats, is its being rendered unsubmergible, by attaching to it, chiefly within boards, water-tight air-cases, or fixed water-tight compartments under a deck.... Especially it is essential that the spare space along the sides of a life-boat, within boards, should be entirely occupied by buoyant cases or compartments; as when such is the case, on her shipping a sea, the water, until got rid off, is confined to the midships part of the boat, where, to a great extent, it serves as ballast, instead of falling over to the lee-side, and destroying her equilibrium, as is the case in an ordinary open boat.” The Institution’s self-righting boats are ballasted with _heavy_ iron keels (up to 21 cwts.), and _light_ air-tight cases, cork, &c. The advantage of employing a ballast of less specific gravity than water is, that in the event of the boat being stove in, the buoyancy of the material itself then comes into play.

“Self-righting” is, of course, a most important principle in life-boats, and out of some 250 boats of the Institution there are scarcely more than twenty which do not possess it. Up to twenty years or so ago it was derided by many otherwise practical men. Yet as early as 1792 we find the Rev. James Bremner, of Walls, Orkney, proposing to make all ordinary boats capable of righting themselves in the water by placing two water-tight casks, parallel to each other, in the head and stern sheets, and by affixing a heavy iron keel. The self-righting power of to-day is obtained by the following means. The boat is built with considerably higher gunwales at the bows and stern than in the centre, while four to six feet of the space at either end are water-tight air-chambers. A heavy iron keel is attached, and a nearly equal weight of light air-cases, and cork ballast cases are stowed betwixt the boat’s floor and the deck. “No other measures are necessary to be taken in order to effect the self-righting power. When the boat is forcibly placed in the water with her keel upwards, she is floated unsteadily on the two air chambers at bow and stern, while the heavy iron keel and other ballast then being carried above the centre of gravity, an unstable equilibrium is at once effected, in which dilemma the boat cannot remain, the raised weight falls on one side or the other of the centre of gravity, and drags the boat round to her ordinary position, when the water shipped during the evolution quickly escapes through the relieving tubes, and she is again ready for any service that may be required of her.”

Nearly all life-boat stations are provided with a transporting carriage, built especially for the particular boat. The use of this, in many cases, is to convey the boat by land to the point nearest the wreck. On some coasts the distance may be several miles. In addition to this, a boat-carriage is of immense service in launching a boat from a beach without her keel touching the ground; so much so, indeed, that one can be readily launched from a carriage through a high surf, when without one she could not be got off the beach. The carriage is often backed sufficiently far into the water to enable the boat to float when she is run off.

The foregoing will give a sufficient idea of the boat itself, and now to its work. Courage and ability are required to put it into action, and the dangers to which the crew of a life-boat are exposed entitle those who encounter them to the greatest honour. “It is impossible to exaggerate the awful circumstances attending a shipwreck. Let us picture the time, when, after a peaceful sunset and the toils of the day are over, the hero of the life-boat has retired to rest, and the silence of the night is unbroken except by the murmur of the winds and the noise of the sea breaking on the shore. With the approach of the storm, however, the winds and waves rise in fury upon the deep, and with their mingled vengeance lash the cliffs and the beach. A signal of distress arouses the coxswain and his men; crowds rush in curiosity to the cliffs, or line the shore, heedless of the driving rain or the blinding sleet. Barrels of tar are lighted on the coast, and the signal gun and the fiery rocket make a fresh appeal to the brave. The boat-house is unlocked, and the life-boat with her crew is dragged hurriedly to the shore. The storm rages wildly, and the mountains of surf and sea appal the stoutest heart. The gallant men look dubiously at the work before them, and fathers and mothers and wives and children implore them to desist from a hopeless enterprise. The voice of the coxswain, however, prevails. The life-boat is launched among the breakers, cutting bravely through the foaming mass—now buried under the swelling billows, or rising on their summit—now dashed against the hapless wreck still instinct with life—now driven from it by a mountain wave—now embarking its living freight, and carrying them, through storm and danger and darkness, to a blessed shore. Would that this was the invariable issue of a life-boat service! The boat that adventures to a wreck meets with disaster itself occasionally; and in the war of the elements some of its gallant crew have sometimes been the first of its victims.” And when we consider that the number of wrecks on the coasts of the United Kingdom alone, averaged 1,446 per annum for the twenty years between 1852 and 1871, we can form an idea of the importance of life-boat work on these shores. In the succeeding chapter some special instances of perilous and successful rescues will be presented.