On the night of the llth June, in a heavy gale from S.S.W., the brig Florence Nightingale, of London, coal laden, stranded on the Sizewell Bank, near Thorpeness. A tar-barrel being burned, was seen from the shore, and the Thorpe life-boat was quickly launched, through a tremendous surf, and proceeded to her. On nearing the wreck, her masts went by the board, making the operation of taking off the crew a very difficult one. The anchor, however, being let go to windward, the boat was veered down, and the wrecked crew, 6 in number, hauled on board by lines. One of the life-boat's crew was washed overboard by a heavy sea which struck the boat; but being supported by his life-belt, and a line being thrown to him, he was enabled safely to regain her.

This excellent life-boat was presented to the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION by residents in the town and neighbourhood of Ipswich, in 1862, and this was the second shipwrecked crew she had saved from a watery grave during the few months she had been on the station.

In acknowledgment of his services on these occasions and previously in the former Thorpe life-boat, the coxswain, WILLIAM ALEXANDER, was voted the Silver Medal of the NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION, which was publicly presented to him at Ipswich, by the Mayor, G. C. E. BACON, Esq., on the 16th July last..