As a result of negotiations which have been going on between the Board of Trade and the Institution since July, 1920, the Institution has now taken over full financial responsibility for the Ramsgate Station, and, as from 31st March last, will, for the future, pay all retaining fees, remuneration for exercises and rewards for services. Ramsgate will now be on the same footing as the other Stations of the Institution.

The earliest record of life-saving work at Ramsgate is that in 1852 the Harbour Trustees purchased a Life-boat. Thir- teen years later the Institution placed a new Life-boat at that Station, and since that date the Station has been managed jointly by the Institution and the Board of Trade. The Life-boats have been supplied and maintained by the Institu- tion, while the Board of Trade has borne the cost of maintaining and reward- ing the Coxswains and Crew, and has always placed a tug at the disposal of the Life-boat, for towing her out to vessels in distress. The Ramsgate tugs have, in fact, played a notable part in many courageous services.

Ramsgate has a life-saving record second to none in the annals of the Institution. Its boats have rescued up to date no fewer than 1,257 lives, and have saved 113 boats and vessels from destruction.

One of the most famous of all rescues from shipwreck round our coasts, the service to the sailing ship the Indian Chief, was the work of the Ramsgate Life-boat and the Ramsgate tug Aid in 1881. In the face of almost insuperable difficulties the crew of the ship were saved, but not until the Life-boat and the tug had been unceasingly exposed to a furious winter gale and a terrible sea for twenty-six hours. The full story of this rescue was written at the time by Clark Russell in the Daily Telegraph, was reprinted in The Life-Boat, and remains one of the most graphic and moving stories in the English language of heroism at sea.

For this service Coxswain Fish of the Life-boat received the Gold Medal of the Institution, the V.C. of the Life-Boat Service, and his crew, and the captain and crew of the tug, silver medals. Fish is one of three splendid seamen who have been Coxswains of the Ramsgate Life- boat. It is, in fact, one of the remarkable features of this Station that in over sixty years it should have had only three Coxswains. The first of the three was Isaac Jarman, who was twice awarded the Silver Medal of the Institution. He was succeeded in 1871 by Fish, who was awarded the Silver Medal once and the Gold Medal twice, and Fish in turn was succeeded in 1891 by William Cooper, a silver medallist, who is still Coxswain of the Boat.

Though it is now forty-one years since the service to the Indian Chief was, per- formed, the remains of the vessel can still be seen on the Goodwins at low water, while one of the quarter-badges of the vessel, with the plumed head of "The Chief," hangs in the hall at the House of the Institution. Several members of the crews of the Life-boat and the tug who took part in that great service are still alive, and since 1914 the Institution has paid weekly sums to such of them as have been in poor circumstances. Altogether the Institution has expended £800 in this way.

For many years the name of the city of Bradford was associated with Rams- gate. The first of the Ramsgate Life- boats built by the Institution was pro- vided out of a fund raised among the people cf Bradford and was named after the city. A second and a third Life-boat were also built out of funds raised in the same city, and were stationed at Rams- gate, and a fourth Life-boat, though provided by the Institution, was given the same name in recognition of Brad- ford's generosity. In fact from 1866 until 1905 the Ramsgate Life-boat bore that city's name, and Bradford, with a generosity which seems to be charac- teristic of this great industrial city, has now raised a special fund to provide a Motor Life-boat for the Station at Spurn on the Yorkshire coast..