LIFEBOAT MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

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Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society

THE twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of this Institution was held on the 8th May last at Willis's Rooms, His Grace the DDKE OF MARLBOROUGH, President of the Society, in the Chair. The noble President, with great clearness, in an excellent speech, put before the Meeting the truly important and national objects of the Society.

The Secretary read the Report of the Committee, wherein it was stated that, during the past year, the Society had relieved 7,250 shipwrecked persons, natives and foreigners, viz., Hanoverian, French, Spanish, American, and Dutch, and 3,687 widows and orphans of fishermen and mariners, making a total of 10,397; that 49,898 mariners voluntarily subscribed 3s.

each per annum ; that the income had been 17,734?. 13s. 5rf., including 2,049Z. 18s. 8d.

legacies, in connection with which certain large donors were mentioned.

The tables for a Pension Fund for wornout Merchant Seamen are to be published in a few weeks, the name of which is to be The Mariners' National Pension Fund;" an Annuity Fund for mariners' widows will accompany it. It appears the plan is to call on the benevolent public to aid these funds, and also to assist in establishing a Hospital, or Asylum, for poor old sailors who have no- social ties, and whose pensions are not sufficient, under the care of hirelings.

The Committee had awarded during the past year seventeen Gold and Silver Medals for saving the lives of 125 shipwrecked persons, either on the high seas or on the coasts of our colonies.

The Report concluded with an earnest appeal to the nobility, gentry, and public at large, for help to carry out the great objects of the Society, and expressed much confidence that they were calculated to bind our seamen to their country, of which they are its outer and principal wall of defence.

The Report was unanimously adopted, and the claims of the Institution having been ably advocated by the EARL of SHREWSBURY and TALBOT; Revs. J. McCoNNELL HUSSEY and GEORGE SMITH ; MONTAGUE GORE, Esq.; Capt. Hon. FRANCIS MAUDE, R.N., Capt. H. TOYNBEE, F.R.A.S. ; GEORGE A. BROGRAVE, Esq.; and Capt.

J. S. LEAN, R.N; the Meeting closed with the usual vote of acknowledgment to the Noble Chairman.