200 Years of Lifesaving at Sea E-Book

Mirrorpix

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 25

Beschreibung

On 4 March 1824, thirty philanthropic gentlemen – including the abolitionist William Wilberforce and Archbishop of Canterbury Charles Manners-Sutton – met in a London pub. Here, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was born. In the following 200 years, the RNLI has been woven into the fabric of our island nation, saving over 144,000 lives, despite some rescuers losing their own in the process. With over 100 fascinating images from Mirrorpix, one of the world's biggest photo libraries, 200 Years of Lifesaving at Sea is a testament to the brave folk who sailed and continue to sail towards danger, rather than away from it.

Leseprobe

All the images are available to license from www.mirrorpix.com.

All captions collated from the Mirrorpix Archives.

With thanks to Nicholas Leach for additional caption information.

Cover IllustrationsFront: Sheringham’s lifeboat being launched into the water in Norfolk in 1935. Back: A lifeboat makes its way through the rough seas of Newhaven, East Sussex.

First published 2024

The History Press97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,Gloucestershire, GL50 3QBwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Mirrorpix/Reach Licensing, 2024

The right of Mirrorpix to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 442 0

Typesetting and origination by The History PressPrinted by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Introduction

The extensive coastline of the United Kingdom and Ireland has witnessed countless maritime disasters and tragic shipwrecks, from individuals in difficulty to ships stranded on sandbanks or torn apart on jagged rocks in rough seas. It’s no surprise that an island nation, dependent on navigating the waters that surround it for fishing and trade, developed the first purpose-built lifeboats. The earliest lifeboats were operated from the burgeoning ports of Liverpool and Newcastle, and the first boat designed and built specifically to save lives at sea was the boat by Henry Greathead, completed in 1789 and launched early the following year from South Shields at the mouth of the River Tyne.

In the 1820s, Sir William Hillary was instrumental in the founding of a nationwide lifeboat service in Great Britain, with the main aim being to preserve lives at sea and assist vessels in distress. It took patience and perseverance to get the required support, but on 4 March 1824, the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck was founded. It was renamed the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), by which we still know it today, on 5 October 1854.