On the morn- ing of the 15th January, a man ran from Dunwich to Southwold to the house of the coxswain of the life-boat of the National Institution, and informed him that a boat was driving down from Dunwich with men in her, and was fast approaching the breakers on the shoal. At the time a strong gale was blowing, and a heavy sea was running on the bank. The coxswain immediately collected'a crew and proceeded [ to launch the large life-boat, and after the boat had twice been filled with water and driven back on the beach, they succeeded on the third attempt in getting her afloat, and proceeded towards the shipwrecked people, whose boat was then close to the breakers on the Dunwich side of Southwold Pier.

The life-boat succeeded in taking off and safely landing the shipwrecked men, who proved to be the master and 3 men of the schooner Lord Coke, of Middlesborough, bound to London with a cargo of bricks, which vessel had struck and foundered on the Sizewell Bank. If the men had not been rescued when they were, everj one of them would most probably have perished..