THE Life-boat Station at Padstow has celebrated its Centenary this year.

The first mention of it in the records of the Institution appears under the date, 24th January, 1827, when it was decided to make a grant of £10 towards the provision of a Life-boat for Padstow.

The total cost of the boat was estimated at about £40, and tne remainder of this sum -was raised by subscriptions.

The Life-boat was 22 feet long by 6 feet 6 inches broad, and 2 feet 6 inches deep, and pulled four oars single banked.

She was further described as having " both ends alike so as to row out against a sea and return without turning her, thus avoiding the risk of being upset." The boat remained at the station until 1856, when the Institution replaced her -with a self-righting Life-boat, and with, the sending of this new boat took over full control of the station.

Since that date there have been six Life-boats at Padstow, and the total number of lives rescued by the station from 1856 to .the present day is 365.

The Institution's Silver Medal has been awarded five times to Padstow Lifeboatmen.

The first was won by William Giles in 1833, when he went out with seven volunteers in the original Padstow Life-boat and saved four out of five of the crew of a brig, wrecked in a violent gale. The second medal was won by Coxswain William Hills in December, 1865, when he and his crew with great difficulty succeeded in rescuing the crew of seventeen of the barque Juliet of Greenock, which had anchored at the entrance to the harbour near Hell Bay, with a strong W.S.W.

gale blowing. Some hours after her crew were taken off, the sea was making a clean breach over her, and in the end she was carried into Hell Bay and became a total wreck. On his retirement, eleven years later, Coxswain Hills was awarded a Clasp to his Medal.

Coxswain William Webb was awarded the Medal on his retirement in 1883, and Coxswain W. H. Baker, for the service to the Angele in November, 1911, It was a service in which the Coxswain's personal courage and leadership were conspicuously shown. A W.N.W. gale was blowing, with a heavy sea, and two ships, the schooner Island Maid of Belfast and the brigantine Angele of Brest, struck on the Doom Bar.

The Life-boat rescued the schooner's crew of five, and it was when she was returning with them that the Angele was wrecked. The Life-boat at once put out again, but in the gathering darkness and the terrible sea she failed to reach the wreck and returned. Her Crew were exhausted, but Coxwain Baker immediately called for volunteers.

It was not unnatural that at first they should hesitate to come forward, but the Coxswain's perseverance, and the example of his courage, at last collected a crew, and the Life-boat went out to find the brigantine completely submerged and one man in the rigging.

Him she rescued. The other four had been washed away shortly after the brigantine had struck the bar.

Two Disasters.

These 365 lives were not rescued, and these honours won, without loss of life. There have been two disasters in the history of the Station. In 1867 the Albert Edward, the second Padstow Life-boat of that name, was capsized when going out to the help of an American schooner, wrecked on the Doom Bar, and five of her crew of thirteen were drowned. The second and greater disaster, in which two Life-boats were wrecked, occurred in 1900, two years after the Institution had stationed at Padstow a steam Life-boat, James Stevens No. 4, in addition to the Pulling and Sailing Life-boat. On the evening of llth April, with a strong W.N.W. wind blowing, the ketch Peace and Plenty, of Lowestoft, struck on the Greenavray Rocks. Five of her crew were rescued by the Trebetherick Rocket Brigade, and three were drowned. Meanwhile, at about 8.30 p.m., the Pulling Lifeboat, Arab, was launched, and when about 20 fathoms from the Peace and Plenty, anchored in order to veer down to her. While at anchor she was struck by a tremendous sea which completely buried the boat, washed eight of the crew overboard and broke her ten oars.

The eight men were got safely into the Life-boat again, but she was helpless without her oars, and after remaining at anchor about an hour, and burning handlights as signals of distress, the Coxswain decided, as no help came, to attempt to reach the shore. By keeping the boat head to the sea, and veering with the cable, he succeeded in. getting her beyond the heaviest breakers and then into a creek. The crew jumped for the shore, and the Lifeboat herself was dashed against the rocks, becoming a total wreck. The Steam Life-boat was launched after the Pulling Boat, and as she was leaving the harbour, about 9.30, a heavy swell rolled up on the port quarter, broke as it struck her, and completely turned her over. The Second Coxswain, Oscar French, was at the wheel. He had no idea that the boat had turned over, but thought that she was passing through the sea. He held on to the wheel, but finding that he was suffering from want of breath he let go, and on coming to the surface found the Life-boat bottom up, with her propeller still revolving.

He and two other members of the crew were the only survivors. The other eight were drowned.

In the following year the Arab was replaced by another and larger selfrighting Life-boat, of the same name, and a second and still larger self-righter, the Edmund Harvey, was sent to the station in place of the Steam Life-boat.

These two Life-boats are still at Padstow —the Arab with a record of 57 lives rescued, and the Edmund Harvey with 78.

The special conditions of this dangerous coast required a large deepdraught vessel capable of keeping the sea; and as the disaster had shown that she must be more powerful than the Steam Life-boat which had been wrecked, it was decided to build a tug to take out the Pulling and Sailing Life-boats. She was specially designed by the Institution's Consulting Naval Architect, Mr. G. L. Watson, designer of the famous Watson type of Lifeboat.

The " Helen Peele." This tug, the Helen Peele, was, and still is, the only tug in the Institution's Fleet. The Helen Peele has taken part in many rescues, working principally with the Edmund Harvey, but now her service is coming to an end, and shortly after the Padstow Station enters on its second century, the Tug and the two Pulling and Sailing Lifeboats will be replaced by two Motor Life-boats, one of them a light Motor Life-boat which can be launched from a carriage, the other one of the largest type—the 60-foot Barnett Twin Screw.

With these two types of Motor Lifeboat, one able to carry out deep-water services, and having a radius of action of 250 miles, and the other for work on the bar, this dangerous piece of Coast will be better protected than ever before in the history of the Padstow Lifeboats..