LIFE-BOAT AND LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. The ar ticle on DROWNING AND LIFE-SAVING (q.v.) deals generally with the means of saving life at sea, but under this heading it is conve nient to include the appliances connected specially with the life boat service. The ordinary open boat is unsuited for life-saving in a stormy sea, and numerous contrivances, in regard to which the lead came from England, have been made for securing the best type of life-boat.
The first experimenter in England was Lionel Lukin, a London coach-builder, later Master of the Worshipful Company of Coach makers. Encouraged by the prince of Wales (George IV.), he con verted a Norway yawl into what he called an "unimmergible" boat, which he patented. Buoyancy he obtained by means of a project ing gunwale of cork and air-chambers inside—one of these being at the bow, another at the stern. Stability he secured by a false iron keel. The self-righting and self-emptying principles he seems not to have thought of ; at all events he did not compass them. Lukin was thinking rather of making all boats safer than of con structing a boat for the special purpose of life-saving, but he was associated with the earliest known attempt at establishing a Life Saving Service when, in 1786, he converted a coble into a "safety boat" for Archdeacon Sharp. This boat was employed for some years at Bamborough in saving life from shipwreck, the village becoming thereby the first life-boat station.
Public apathy in regard to shipwreck was temporarily swept away by the wreck of the "Adventure" of Newcastle at the mouth of the Tyne in 1789. This vessel was stranded only 3ooyd. from the shore, and her crew dropped, one by one, into the raging breakers in presence of thousands of spectators, none of whom dared to put off in an ordinary boat to the rescue. An excited meeting among the people of South Shields followed; a committee was formed, and premiums were offered for the best models of a life-boat. This called forth a number of plans, among those who submitted them being William Wouldhave, a house painter and a teacher of singing, and Henry Greathead, a boat builder, both of South Shields. Wouldhave's model was so constructed that, if capsized, it would immediately right itself, and Wouldhave is entitled to be considered the discoverer of that principle, which is now used in more than half the life-boats round the British coasts. But the committee did not adopt this principle, nor was it entirely satisfied with Wouldhave's design. It gave him half the reward and then, from this and the other designs submitted, prepared a model of its own from which Greathead built the first life-boat.
same year Mr. Cathcart Dempster ordered one for St. Andrews, where, two years later, it saved twelve lives. Thus, the value of life-boats began to be recognized, and before the end of 1803 Greathead had built thirty-one boats—eighteen for England, five for Scotland and eight for foreign lands. In this work he was materially helped by Lloyds. Four years later Lukin, the coach builder, again appeared on the scene, being invited by the Suffolk Humane Society to superintend the building of the first sailing life-boat. This boat, launched at Lowestoft at the end of 1807, was the forerunner of the Norfolk and Suffolk type of life-boat still used on that part of the coast.
In spite of these efforts, however, by individuals and local societies acting independently of one another, public interest in life-boats was not thoroughly aroused until 1823, when an appeal to the nation was made by Lt.-Col. Sir William Hillary, Bt., a resident in the Isle of Man. It is to him that we owe the estab lishment of a national life-boat service. He saw many terrible wrecks on the stormy coasts of the Isle of Man, and he helped to save no fewer than 305 lives. His appeal was a carefully thought out plan of what a life-boat service should be, of those to whom it should look for support, and how it should carry on its work. As Sir William Hillary planned the service more than a century ago so, in all the main features of its work, it is to-day. These main features were: That a life-boat service must be a matter for national concern ; that those who carried out the dangerous work of rescue should not only be rewarded, but should be certain that, if they lost their lives, their dependents would be provided for; that the life-boats should be at the service of all in peril round the coasts, whatever their nationality; and that the service should be maintained by voluntary contributions. Within a year, and with the help of two members of parliament— Mr. Thomas Wilson and Mr. George Hibbert—Hillary had founded the "Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck." The Royal National Life-boat Institution.—This, perhaps the grandest of England's charitable societies, and now named the "Royal National Life-boat Institution," was founded on March 4, It began its career with a sum of only 19,826. In the first year twelve new life-boats were built and placed at different stations, besides which thirty-nine life-boats had been stationed on the British shores by benevolent individuals and by independent associations over which the institution exercised no control, though it often assisted them. In its early years the institution placed the mortar apparatus of Captain Manby at many stations, and_ provided for the wants of sailors and others saved from ship wreck,—a duty subsequently discharged by the "Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society." At the date of the institution's second report it had contributed to the saving of three hundred and forty-two lives, either by its own life-saving apparatus or by other means for which it had granted rewards.