ON 14th December last, the Queen unveiled the memorial, which has been erected on Tower Hill, to the 12,649 men of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who gave their lives in the Great War and who have no grave but the sea.

During the War, from August, 1914, to the signing of peace in June, 1919, besides the Life-boatmen who lost their lives when serving with the Navy, twenty-three Life-boatmen lost their lives on Life-boat service.

At the ceremony on Tower Hill twenty-four Life-boatmen were present, in full Life-boat dress, drawn from the Stations at Southend, Margate, Ramsgate, Eastbourne, Newhaven and Worthing. These men, on behalf of the whole Service, paid their last tribute to their own comrades and to the men of the Mercantile Navy and Fishing Fleets who died in the Great War..