Ir is only fitting that Great Britain, with her large extent of coast-line and great mercantile navy, and with the sea-salt inborn in the veins of her sons, should have taken and kept the lead in the organisation of ways and means for the saving of life from shipwreck. Yet probably no one has less knowledge of the appearance and working of a lifeboat than the average dweller in our inland towns, who, magnificently though they may, and do, support our life-saving institutions, have yet no opportunity of acquiring any practical knowledge of lifeboats or their gallant crews, with the exception of the few among the seaside tourists who, in their annual trip in search of ozone, may perchance have come across a peculiarly-shaped boat on the beach, painted red, white, and blue, and upon inquiry have been informed by some old salt that she was a lifeboat, or

in the larger towns by the sea, where stands the often imposing-looking lifeboat-house of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, may have spent an idle half-hour in inspecting the boat and hearing a yarn or two from the civil custodian. With the hope that this article, with the aid of the illustrations, may give a clearer idea of what a lifeboat is to those who have never or rarely seen one, and may awaken even a yet greater interest in a service so deservedly popular as the lifesaving service of Great Britain, with its fleet of 287 lifeboats, and its army of brave and devoted men, whose efforts since their first organisation have resulted in the saving of 31,645 lives.

A short sketch of the history of lifeboats and their invention, showing what evolutions have resulted in the "survival of the fittest,' may probably prove the readiest way of

showing the qualities necessary for a lifesaving boat. The first lifeboat was built by Mr. Lionel Lukin, a coachbuilder in Long Acre, about 1784, which he called an "Unimmergible Boat."

Lukin was a native of Dunmow in Essex. George IV., then Prince of Wales, encouraged Lukin, and offered to pay the cost of all his experiments. Lukin purchased a Norway yawl, and to the outside of the upper frame of the yawl he added a projecting gunwale of cork and formed within the boat a hollow, water-tight inclosure. He then added a false iron keel and two watertight inclosures, one at the bow and another at the stern.

The only boat ever fitted on Lukin's principle was a Bamborough coble, which was reported to have saved several lives. Lukin died at Hythe, in Kent, in 1834, and the following inscription was engraved on his tombstone and is still to be seen:

"This Lionel Lukin

was the first who built a lifeboat, and was the original Inventor of that principle of safety by which many lives and much property have been preserved from shipwreck, and he obtained for it the King's Patent in the year 1785."

Notwithstanding the earnestness of Lukin, hardly anything was done to aid the shipwrecked sailor until the year 1789, when the Adventure, of Newcastle, was wrecked at the mouth of the Tyne and her crew drowned in the sight of thousands of spectators. Excited by this disaster, the people of South Shields offered premiums for the best model of a lifeboat. Out of numerous designs two were selected, Mr. W. Wouldhave's and Mr. H. Greathead's; and the latter was employed to build a lifeboat on his plan, which was launched at South Shields in 1790. The committee would appear to have combined the two plans of Wouldhave and Greathead, and given it to the latter to build.

The idea of Wouldhave's form of boat was suggested to him, it was said, by the following circumstance: Having been asked to assist a woman to put a skeel of water on her head, Mr. Wouldhave 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. This observation suggested to him the construction of his model, but he does not seem to have done more than construct the boat, which was long known at Shields by the name of Wouldhave's

For this and much of the historical and technical information contained in the article I am indebted to the exhaustive and able work of the late Mr. George Lewis, secretary to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, entitled, The Lifeboat and its Work, and he in his turn was indebted to the Rev. George E. Sharland, of South Shields, for a copy of the above inscription. I am also indebted to the Lifeboat Journal of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution for reports of lifeboat services.

A model of Wouldhave's lifeboat is or was suspended to the chandelier in the church.

Greathead's lifeboat performed no important service until 1791, when it saved the crew of a brig at the entrance of the Tyne. Between then and 1797 it saved several other crews. Notwithstanding this, no other lifeboat was built until 1798, when the then Duke of Northumberland ordered one to be built at his own expense by Greathead, and also endowed it. In 1800 the Duke ordered one for Oporto, and Mr. C. Dempster in the same year one for Saint Andrews, where, on January 10th, 1803, it saved twelve men from the Meanwell of Scarborough. On account of the violence of the storm the

fishermen were afraid to venture in the boat until Mr. Dempster, Major Horsburgh, and Mr. D. Stewart volunteered. Owing to these proofs of their value Mr. Greathead had built thirty-one boats before the end of 1803.

In 1802, when 200 lives had been saved at the mouth of the Tyne alone, Greathead applied to Parliament for a reward, and £1,200 was voted to him. The Trinity House added £105, Lloyd's the same sum, the Society of Arts a gold medal and fifty guineas, and the Emperor of Russia a diamond ring.

In 1810 one of Greathead's lifeboats at Hartley, on the coast of Northumberland, rescued the crews of several cobles. On returning to the shore, however, the boat got too near the South Bush Rock, when a heavy sea broke on board and split her in halves, and all on board-thirty-four men-were drowned.

Greathead's original lifeboat was lost in 1821 upon the rocks at the mouth of the Tyne, but no lives were lost.

The next effort in the direction of the preservation of life from shipwreck was made by Sir William Hilary, Bart., who published a powerful appeal to the nation, asking "whether Englishmen would quietly look on and see hundreds of their fellow-creatures annually perish, when means of rescue, if supplied and properly used, were within reach ?"

This appeal was warmly responded to, but little was done until 1823, when Sir William became acquainted with Mr. T. Wilson, one of the members for the city of London, who warmly took up the subject and caused a meeting to be held at the London Tavern with a view to the formation of a National Shipwreck Institution. The result of this meeting was that the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck was founded. The receipts of the Institution during its first year were £9,826 68. 6d., and the Committee, in their first report, stated that they had caused twelve lifeboats to be built for different stations, besides which nine had been stationed round the coast by benevolent indi viduals and associations not connected with the Institution.

In 1826, the late S. Palmer, Esq., of Nasing Park, Essex, became connected with the Institution, and in 1828 his plan of fitting lifeboats was adopted by the Institution until 1852, when it was superseded by the selfrighting principle. Palmer's boats rendered great service, some hundreds of lives having been saved by their instrumentality.

Between 1841 and 1850 no appeal was made to the public, and lifeboat work was in a very depressed state when a lamentable accident to the South Shields lifeboat, by which twenty men were drowned, had the effect of recalling public attention to the lifeboat question.

Out of evil came good, and a committee was formed to make renewed efforts.

The late Prince Consort became vice-patron of the Institution, in conjunction with the late King of the Belgians, her Majesty the Queen being patron, and in 1860 her Majesty granted a charter of incorporation.

In 1851 the late Duke of Northumberland offered a prize of 100 guineas for the best model of a lifeboat, and the like sum for defraying the cost of building a boat on the model chosen. In response 280 models and plans were sent in, and out of these Mr. James Beeching, of Great Yarmouth, was the successful candidate.

The first self-righting boat was constructed by Mr. James Beeching. It was thirty-six feet long and twelve-oared.

The Lifeboat Committee, not being altogether satisfied with Beeching's boat, had requested Mr. Peake, one of their number, to design a boat overcoming as far as possible the errors of Beeching's plan. Such a boat was designed and built at Woolwich Dockyard at the expense of the Government and under Mr. Peake's personal superintendence. This boat was a great success, and, although modified from time to time as the result of experiments, was completed and presented to his grace. The National Lifeboat Institution proceeded to build others on the same plan, and this same class of boats with certain important modifications and improvements it has continued to adopt up to the present time, so that the lifeboat of the Institution cannot be looked on as any one man's design or invention. The Institution's self-righting lifeboats have a water-tight deck at the loadwater line, and detached air-boxes along the sides from the thwarts to the deck. A great amount of extra buoyancy is also in these boats derived from large end air-cases built across their bow and stern, and occupying from 5 to 6 feet in length from the stem and stern posts to gunwale height. These cases are chiefly intended to provide self-righting power in the event of the boat being stove in, and the place below the deck being filled with water they alone have sufficient buoyancy to float her.

The second peculiar characteristic of a lifeboat is the capability of self-discharging in a few seconds any water which may be shipped

yet without suffering any leakage into the air-chambers under the deck. In the selfrighting boats these tubes are fitted with self-acting valves which open downwards only, so that they will allow any water shipped to pass downwards, while none beyond a trifling leakage can pass upwards through them. These boats are first ballasted with a heavy iron keel, which acts as a most powerful leverage. These iron keels vary in weight from 3 to 21 cwt. Ballast formed of air-tight cases and of cork inclosed in water-tight cases

was designed and brought out by H. and H. T. Richardson, two Welsh gentlemen, father and son, who first used one on a lake in Wales. When the prize was offered by the Duke of Northumberland they sent a model to compete.

They built at Manchester a full-sized boat, forty feet long and rowing fourteen oars, and made a coasting voyage in it themselves from Liverpool to the Thames. This boat was afterwards sold to the Portuguese Government and stationed at Oporto.

A smaller tubular boat was built for the Institution and stationed at Rhyl, the boatmen at that place having applied for such a boat. She has saved several crews and has been highly reported on by those who work her. She has great stability and tows steadily.

Another such boat has been stationed by the Institution at New Brighton, and has done good service in saving life and property.

The only boats in the United Kingdom now ballasted with water are the Norfolk and Suffolk lifeboats. These boats deserve special notice and will be referred to in a separate division, as their build and entire system of launching and working, &c., is totally different from that of the self-righting boats.

It frequently happens that wrecks occur at a place several miles distant from the lifeboat station, yet close to the shore. In such cases it is quicker and safer to transport the life. boat by land to the scene of the disaster than for her to be rowed or sailed broadside to the sea, through, perhaps, several miles of broken water. Again, at many places the shore runs out very flat, and should a wreck occur at low water, although abreast of the lifeboat station, she might have to be conveyed a quarter of a mile or more over the sands before she could be floated, which could then only be accomplished at the expense of much labour and loss of valuable time, unless she were placed on a wheeled carriage.

No pains or expense was spared by the Institution to make its lifeboat carriages as efficient as possible, not only for transport, but as a means of launching a lifeboat safely, quickly, and effectively. The subject was warmly taken up by the late Colonel J. Nisbett Colquhoun, R.A. He became chair man of the Institution's Carriage, House, and Rocket Sub-committee, and in 1852 he caused to be built in the Royal Arsenal, from his own designs, a carriage which was supplied to four stations and then abandoned by the Committee as a permanent pattern, on account of its costliness and weight. It however became the acknowledged pattern, of which all subsequent ones were, more or less, modifications. On the decease of Colonel Colquhoun his successor at the Royal Arsenal, Lieut.-Colonel A. T. Tulloh, R.A., also turned his attention to the subject, and with his assistance and that of Messrs. Ransome and Sons, of Ipswich, a carriage on a modified plan was produced. It was much cheaper and lighter, but after some extensive trials of four carriages of that class on the coast it was also found that it was not sufficiently

simple in its arrangements for the crews of lifeboats to handle it satisfactorily. The Committee then requested their inspector of lifeboats to carry out a series of investigations, and draw up a report embodying the experiences of those who had been in the habit of using the various kinds of existing lifeboat transporting carriages, together with his own views as to the best way of meeting the necessities of the case.

As the result of these investigations Captain Ward placed before the Committee designs for a carriage which he considered would meet the various conditions in a lifeboat carriage. His plan was approved, and the carriage then built became the model on which the Institution has continued to build to the present time.

In addition to transportation, a 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 launched from a carriage through a high surf, when without one she could not be got off the beach.

In some cases where there is a harbour, as at Ramsgate, the boat is kept afloat, and when required is towed out by a steam tug to the scene of the wreck, or as near to it as possible (see illustration, p. 333). The tug then waits until the rescue is effected and picks up the boat again and tows her home.

To conduce to a thorough understanding of the whole method of launching the lifeboat from its carriage and the rescue of the shipwrecked crew, a general description of the work will be given, partly compiled from yarns by lifeboat men, partly from different accounts of services in the Lifeboat, the journal of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, so as to give as clear an idea as possible to the non-nautical reader of the saving of life from shipwreck, combined with reports of actual rescues effected by the lifeboats of the Institution, selected with a view of showing special points, such as the transportation of boats, the determination of the crews, &c., &c.

Let the reader imagine him- or her-self a visitor at one of our seaside towns, not under the usual conditions of seaside visitation, bright sun, sparkling water, paddling and castle-building children, splashing bathers, bands of music, Ethiopian serenaders, and shrieking donkey-riders, but in mid-winter, when the surf is thundering on the beach, now deserted save by a few boatmen and fishermen gathered under the lee of an old boat or shed, sweeping the horizon with a