Paper read by Sir JOHN CAHEBON LAMB, C.B., C.M.G., V.P., Deputy-Chairman of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION, before the Royal Society of Arts, on the 16th February, 1910. Colonel Sir FrrzRoY CLAYTON, K.C.V Colonel Sir FrrzRoY CLAYTON, K.C.V.O., V.P., Chairman of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION, in the Chair. THE Council of your Society have thought it appropriate that, in this, the jubilee year of the charter of the ROYAL NATIONAL LIFE-BOAT INSTITUTION, a paper on the Life-boat and its work might be offered for your consideration. It is not to be supposed that lives were not saved from shipwreck before the advent of the Life-boat. From time immemorial there had been gallant rescues by all kinds of boats; and they continue to the present day. But the Life-boat has saved thousands of lives which would otherwise have been lost; and it has led to a concentration of thought and of effort, both in this country and abroad, which has radically changed the character of the service rendered by brave men to their shipwrecked fellow-creatures. No longer does the service depend on the generous impulse of scattered, irresponsible, ill-requited men : it is organised and under control; it has public recognition and support; it is constant in its operation, and it is inspired by as much courage and generosity as ever. It is impossible to assign to anyone per- son the merit of inventing the Life-boat. As earlyas!777,a Monsieur Bernieres, Director of Roads and Bridges in France 

invented a boat which, while carrying eight men on board, would not sink when she was filled with water, and would not capsize when she was hove down so far that the top of her mast touched the sea""'; but I cannot find that the inven- tion was ever put to practical use.f Lionel Lukin, with his plans for in- creasing the buoyancy and stability of boats, was first in the field in this country. He appears to have had no knowledge of the work of Monsieur Bernieres. A coach-builder in Long Acre, he was a very worthy member of the Worshipful Company of Coach- makers, of which he became Master in 1793. Although a landsman, he had sea blood in his veins, being descended on his mother's side from Lionel Lane, one of Blake's captains. Writing to the Prince of Wales J (afterwards George IV.), whom he had frequently to see on other business, he described how, in 1784, he was led to study the subject, how his Royal Highness encouraged him, and how far success attended his efforts. It appears that, having pur- chased a Norway yawl§ he converted her into what he called an " unim- mergible boat," tested her on the Thames, and took out a patent. || The name " unimmergible" did not suggest a sufficiently philanthropic purpose, and it was not simple enough to be popular. It is evidence indeed that Lukin was thinking rather of making people in boats safe than of using those people to save others. But some of the essential features of a Life-boat were there, as may be seen from the diagram on the screen. The larger figure shows the plan of the Norway yawl as converted by Lukin, and the smaller a cross section amid- ships. A is a projecting cork gunwale ; B, B, B, are air-tight cases at the ends of the boat, and along the sides above and below the thwarts; c is an iron keel. The patent is dated 2nd November, 1785. By accident Lukin was associated with the earliest known attempt to establish a life-saving service. Nathaniel, third Baron Crewe of Stene and Bishop of Durham, married the daughter of Wil- liam Forster, of Bamburgh, Northumber- land, and acquired the estates of that gentleman. Dying in 1721 without children, he left the estates to trustees for charitable purposes. In course of time the management was undertaken by Archdeacon Sharp, an enlightened philanthropist, who not merely adminis- tered the Trust as chairman, but furthered its objects by contributions out of his own pocket. It was owing to his initiative that the funds were partly devoted to purposes connected with the sea. He devised schemes under the Trust for the benefit of mariners and shipwrecked persons; and, in 1786, he sent a coble to London to be converted by Lukin into a safety-boat, which was afterwards employed for some years at Bamburgh in saving life from shipwreck. Thus, although only to the extent of applying his ideas to the coble which was sent to him, Lukin was concerned in the first life-saving station on the coast.* At about the same time, William Wouldhave, a house-painter in South Shields, who taught singing in the charity school, and eventually became parish clerk, a versatile and eccentric genius, was trying to design a boat which would neither sink nor remain upset; but his final model was not made until 1789, between three and four years after the date of Lukin's patent. A third claimant to the invention was Henry Greathead, also of South Shields. This gentleman received £1,200 from Parliament, and a gold medal and 50 guineas from the Society of Arts, besides other rewards.f In the Gentleman's Magazine of 1806 there is a voluminous correspon- dence on the merits of the claimants, two Tyneside gentlemen taking up the cudgels for Wouldhave, against both Lukin and Greathead, and Lukin defend- ing his own position. The controversy has been revived from time to time, and Sir David Brewster became the cham- pion of Lukin in an article which appeared in Good Words in 1863. The materials now available are perhaps scarcely sufficient for an unassailable judgment; but what emerges from the conflicting claims may be stated thus : Lukin, when he took out his patent, had not thought of self-righting qualities, and did not propose to construct a boat to be specially employed in saving life ; neither did he propose to establish a Life-boat service. His aim (and he afterwards said he thought it was a higher aim) was to make all kinds of boats safe and buoyant. Although he liked the build of the Norway yawl, he did not attach importance to it or to any particular design, but proposed that his invention should be applied to any boat. Wouldhave, unlike Lukin, thought much of build or design. He was not insensible to the value of water-tight chambers and cork; but it was on the shape of the boat that his mind kept working; and he intended that his boat should be a Life-boat, and nothing else. He did not suppose that the owners of the vessels which frequented the Tyiie could be induced to convert their ships' boats into safety boats; he was possessed with the conviction that if life was to be saved from shipwreck, it must be by means of a boat specially constructed, set apart for the purpose, and always ready. The kind of seas encountered at the mouth of the Tyne made it important that a boat stationed there should have self-righting qualities, and this gave direction to his aims. A firm of brewers allowed him to test his models in their tanks, but it was an accident which suggested the solution of the problem. In a ramble, early in 1789, he happened to see a woman who had just been drawing water from a well. Her skeel was full, and on the surface of the water there floated the half of a circular wooden dish. While he chatted with her before helping to lift the skeel to her head, he tried to make the wooden fragment turn over, but at his every attempt it righted, and would not remain upside down. Wouldhave might have cried " Eureka," but he probably used some more homely expression as, with a light step, he went off to continue his experiments at the brewery. Pre- sently he ran into the office of the firm, saying that he had discovered the principle he was looking for. Soon after- wards an advertisement appeared in the Newcastle Gourant offering a premium of two guineas for a plan or model of a boat capable of living in the stormy seas at the mouth of the Tyne. Would- have was ready, and, on the 10th June, submitted the model,* of which a photo- graph is shown on the screen. It was made of tin ; and his idea was that the actual Life-boat might be made of iron, or preferably of copper as not being liable to tear. She was to have a straight keel, high-peaked ends fitted with water-tight cases containing cork, cork along her sides within board and above the floor amidships, and great shear of gunwale. It has been suggested that he must have known of Lukin's patent, and made use of the knowledge, but the essence of Wouldhave's invention lay in the shape of the boat, and in the high ends the value of which he had learnt from the broken wooden dish. He was evidently working independently, and he could not have learnt about the high ends from Lukin, as that gentle- man never mentioned them. Wouldhave and Lukin were both men of honour and singleness of mind. One was poor and the other well off, but they were both of the same mind in desiring to serve their fellow-creatures and in lightly esteeming monetary reward. A careful consideration of the facts will, I think, lead you to the conclusion that Wouldhave was the father of the self-righting Life-boat, and Lukin of the staunch non-self-righting sailing Life- boat. To ascertain Greathead's part it is necessary to revert to the advertisement in the Newcastle Gourant, and to admit to our minds the testimony of Mr. Nicholas Fairies, a gentleman of South Shields, who had more to do with the matter than anyone. The advertise- ment originated with a body bearing the curious name of " The Gentlemen of the Lawe House." They met in a house which had been built as barracks for a battery, on an eminence called the Lawe. From their reading-room they could look on the entrance to the Tyne, and they must have seen many dread- ful wrecks—among others, that of the Adventure, whose crew dropped off the rigging one by one, and perished in the sight of thousands of helpless spectators. The " Gentlemen of the Lawe House" were not very solemn personages, for they playfully dubbed their Treasurer "Chancellor of the Exchequer," and they had a " Sergeant-at-Arms," who wore an imposing badge of office. But they had feeling, and they were practical and prompt. The wreck of the Adventure was on the 15th March, 1789.J In April they submitted to the Brethren of the Newcastle Trinity House a pro- posal to station a boat permanently at the mouth of the river for the saving of shipwrecked persons, and to erect beacons for the guidance of mariners. Their proposal was warmly approved both by the Brethren, and by that im- portant body known as the " Committee