The thing about being an island is that you have coasts, and the thing about having coasts is that ships wreck on them. In the early 19th century, Britain and Ireland racked up an average of 1,800 shipwrecks a year. And–you will have figured this out already–the thing about shipwrecks is that people die. 

For most of Britain’s history, rescuing people from shipwrecks was a hit-or-miss business. People in ports did what they could, but seas stormy enough to wreck a ship are stormy enough to wreck the small boats they’d put out in, and there was a limit to what they could do. 

Irrelevant photo: rose hips

The organizational stuff

Mostly, people put out in whatever little boats they had, but in 1730 Liverpool introduced a boat dedicated to nothing but lifesaving, and in 1785 Bamburgh launched the first one specifically designed for it. Four years later, businessmen from Tyne and Wear ran a design competition for a lifeboat. Let’s toss in a name or two here, because they’re wonderful. The winning boat was designed by William Wouldhave, and it could right itself if it capsized. 

After that, the boatbuilder Henry Greathead was asked to combine the best features of the new boat and the earlier design, and in 20 years he’d built 30 hybrids. But lifesaving was still a local effort, dependent on local initiative, money, and energy. 

The first national effort started in 1824, when the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck was formed. The founder (whose name is boring so we’ll skip it) was well connected–you could’ve called him Sir Boring Name and no one would’ve thought you were being weird–so he was able to approach the navy, the government, and assorted “eminent characters” for backing. They were generous with their moral support but didn’t cough up much in the way of cash.

It was an MP (whose name is also boring) who suggested tapping the wealthy but less eminent, and that shook loose the money he needed. There was prestige to be had in philanthropizing, and some of them probably even cared about the causes they donated to. Sir Boring Name raised £10,000 from them. That would be in the neighborhood of £1,000,000 today. In other words, it was more than enough to buy lunch, never mind launch a few boats and an organization. 

By 1825 the newly formed organization had 15 lifeboats and thirteen lifeboat stations to its name, which it changed to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1854. Neither name flows off the tongue happily, but since it’s now known as the RNLI, no one notices.

By 1886, when 27 lifeboat crew members died responding to the wreck of the Mexico, donations from the rich had stagnated. Maybe they’d gotten bored with the same old, same old and some other cause had eclipsed the RNLI. Causes go in and out of fashion, even when the needs they respond to stay around. It was local people who donated money to support the bereaved families, as I’m sure they had from time immemorial–that had never been the RNLI’s role–but the disaster also led to a couple deciding that RNLI funding needed to be dependent not on a wealthy few but on the nation as a whole. They democratized the effort, going for many small donations, and they raised £10,000 in two weeks. Since then, the RNLI has turned to the public for support and gotten it. 

You may have figured out by now that the organization isn’t part of the government and never has been. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I don’t know. Probably a bit of both. 

Launching the boats

Let’s focus for a moment on one lifeboat station, in Selsey, which is–um, hang on. 

It’s in West Sussex. I knew that.

Selsey built its first lifeboat station in 1861, and until 1913, when they built a slipway, it launched its lifeboats by hauling them over wooden skids laid on the beach. That’s for each launch, I believe, since the skids would’ve been either washed away or  buried by the tides if they’d been left in place. It was heavy work and it was slow. 

I can’t swear that this is true of the Selsey boat, but lifeboats were often launched and hauled out of the water by women, helped by horses if they were available. The men would already be onboard. 

In 1899, a lifeboat (not from Selsey; do pay attention; we left there sentences ago) was hauled ten miles overland for a rescue during a storm, either because it was safer than risking it in open water or they needed a more protected place to launch. Some 50 to 60 people dragged it across Exmoor with the help of 18 horses. They knocked down walls (that would’ve been stone walls, so no light job) and anything else that was in their way and occasionally had to lift the boat off its carriage to get it through gates. It took them ten hours. Everyone on board the ship was saved.

It would make a hell of a movie. Toss in a few lifelong enmities having to work together, gale-force winds, beards, and some of those long, heavy skirts (probably not on the same people as the beards, since this was a while ago and they could be stiff-necked about that stuff in public). 

Plus, of course, the horses. Never forget the horses. And a member of the local gentry giving orders to people who know their work better than him.

Rescue

The lifejacket was introduced to lifesaving crews in 1854. It was made from strips of cork sewn onto canvas and it was bulky. It didn’t catch on until 1861, when the only survivor of a lifeboat that went down was the only crew member wearing one. From there, people went on to improve on the design, gradually making it more buoyant and more comfortable.

In 1808, the breeches buoy was introduced. This was basically a pair of shorts attached to a life preserver and a line. The rescuers could shoot the line to the ship, secure it on both ends, and use it like a zip wire, sliding people one by one from the wreck to safety, then hauling the thing back. Even if the line broke, dumping the passenger in the drink, the life preserver would keep them afloat.

Sounds clunky? It was effective enough that it was used until helicopter rescue edged it out.

And today?

Life’s not all perfect. The RNLI’s national organization has come into conflict with some of its local branches–the ones that raise money to support the RNLI and whose members jump in the boats and risk their lives to save others.

They’re all volunteers. I haven’t mentioned that yet. The system may be organized nationally but it still depends on the passion and goodwill of local volunteers,

As far as I can see, a lot of the conflict is about which lifeboat stations get which boats and about local groups feeling disrespected by the national leadership. In one Scottish station, most of the crew signed a letter saying, “They’re putting an all-weather lifeboat in an in-shore position and an in-shore lifeboat in an open sea position.” 

To which the national organization says, Yeah, but look, we did a Lifesaving Effect Review, where we considered effectiveness and speed and size and modeling and numbers and which stations are big enough to hold which kind of boats and all sorts of other impressive stuff.

Which of course it not an actual quote. That’s what italics are for: cheating.

I’m sure paid good money for the review, but it doesn’t sound like it’s swayed the volunteers. One of them–sorry, another boring name–said, “I’m not going to be responsible for putting a boat like that into the open water in the North Sea. . . . It’s putting lives at risk.”

Another (I don’t know about their name–they asked to be anonymous) reminded the world at large, in the person an Observer reporter, who exactly keeps the organization on its feet: “The population of small coastal towns with lifeboat stations are the ones who keep it going. They do jumble sales, quizzes, Christmas cards, charity events.” 

If you’re running an organization, you alienate those people at your peril.

But as our previous Mr. Boring Name said, “We’ve been around for hundreds of years and these guys will be gone in three. We’ll still be here to pick up the pieces.”