ANOTHER great figure on the North- East Coast has also passed away by the death on 2nd February last of Mrs.

Margaret Armstrong, of Cresswell. She was perhaps the best known of that devoted body of women who, in the little fishing villages of that coast, play a part in the work of saving life from shipwreck only less conspicuous than that of the men. She was in her eightieth year, and had lived all her life at Cresswell, the daughter of a family of fishermen.

None could have had more tragic knowledge of what those must suffer who earn their hard living on and by the sea.

While still a girl she helped to drag ashore her father and her three brothers, flung out of their overturned coble, only to find that they were dead. Through her long life she was one of the launchers of the Cresswell Life-boat, and in fifty years she never missed a launch. Her most conspicuous service was in 1876, when she carried the news of a wreck to the Rocket Life-saving Apparatus, five miles along the coast. It was a terrible journey in the face of a whole gale, and she reached the end of it with feet cut and bleeding, with half her clothes torn off by the wind and waves and so exhausted that she collapsed speechless —but the Coastguard knew her, and knew what her message must be.

A special award was made to her by the Institution for that gallant journey, and in 1922 it recognized her life-time of devotion to the Service by awarding her its Gold Brooch. At her funeral the Institution was represented by the District Organizing Secretary for the North of England, Mr. Edgar H. Johnson, who wrote of it as follows :— " As Margaret Armstrong was reverently borne outside her cottage a large gathering sang the fishermen's hymn.

Then, lifted on to the shoulders of four stalwart Life-boatmen, she was taken up the hill to the little Parish Church,'the only wreath on her coffin being that sent by the Institution in the form of an anchor, with the words, ' The Royal National Life-boat Institution's last mark of respect.' In the Church the coffin rested for the last time on two kitchen chairs which had been brought from her cottage. A congregation of over 200 from miles around filled the little place of worship. At the Vicar's request I spoke a few words on behalf of the Institution, saying that we were bidding good-bye to Margaret Armstrong, a woman who, for fifty years, had never missed a launch of the Cresswell Life-boat, and one whose brave exploit in 1876 would never be forgotten. We deplored her passing, but rejoiced in the thought that we had had the privilege of knowing her.

She had gone to her last home a shining example to the women of the British Isles.".