Miss Alice Marshall, of Oxford ; Major H. E. Burton, O.B.E., R.E., of Tynemouth.

THE Committee of Management at their meeting last June elected Miss Alice Marshall, the retiring Honorary Secretary of its Oxford Branch, a Vice- President of the Institution. She is the first lady to receive this, the highest honour which the Institution can give to one of its honorary workers. Miss Marshall, who has been compelled to give up her Life-boat work on account of ill-health, has been Honorary Secretary of the Oxford Branch since 1911.

Before that she had been an Honorary Collector for the Life-boat Saturday Fund and was Honorary Treasurer of the Ladies' Auxiliary of that Fund from 1905 to 1910. la 1914 she was awarded the Institution's Gold Brooch, and iu 1922 elected the first Honorary Life- Governor. During the sixteen years that she has been Honorary Secretary of the Branch, Miss Marshall has collected for the Life-boat Service over £13,500, and has made Oxford, by its generous and regular support, one of the outstanding Branches of the Institution.

An account of Miss Marshall's work appeared in The Lifeboat for February, 1921.

At their meeting in July the Committee elected Major H. E. Burton, O.B.E., R.E., retiring Honorary Superintendent of the Tynemouth Motor Life-boat, an Honorary Life Governor.

An officer in the Royal Engineers, and a yachtsman holding a Board of Trade Master's Certificate, Major Burton, brought exceptional qualifications and experience to Life-boat work when he became Honorary Superintendent of the Motor Life-boat at Tynemouth.

It was, in fact, the prospect of having his help which decided the Institution to place at Tynemouth, in 1905, its first experimental Motor Life-boat, a converted Pulling and Sailing Life-boat with a 9-h.p. engine. The difficulties which Major Burton faced and overcame may be judged by the fact that such was the distrust of local fishermen that for eight months he manned the new Life-boat with a crew of his own sappers. During this time he carried out a rescue for which the Institution awarded him Binoculars.

Major Barton's work for the Life-boat Service has brought him many other and deserved honours. In 1913 he received the Institution's Silver Medal for his part in the service to the S.S. Dunelm.

In 1914 he won the Gold Medal for the service to the Hospital Ship RoMlla, and was presented by the United States of America with its Gold Cross of Honour; and in 1924, with the other Gold Medallists of the Institution, he was decorated by the King with the Medal of the Order of the British Empire.

Major Burton has now given up his work for the Institution only because he is leaving Tynemouth. An account of Major Burton's work appeared in The Lifeboat for March, 1923.

I* is a pleasure to extend to both these devoted and brilliantly successful workers on behalf of the Life-boat Service the hearty congratulations of the Institution, and to wish them happiness in the leisure which they have so well earned..