James Cable, ex-Coxswain of the Aldeburgh (Suffolk) Station and a member of the Branch Committee, died on 5th May of this year, at the age of 78. Few, if any, Coxswains have had more brilliant careers, and his name was known far beyond the boundaries of his own county. He was the most distinguished member of a family which has an unequalled record in the Life-boat Service; for five genera- tions have served in the Aldeburgh Life-boats. He was a grandson of Thomas Cable, who served from the time when the first Life-boat was stationed at Sizewell, near Aldeburgh, in 1824, until he lost his life on service thirty-five years later. James Cable himself was Coxswain from 1888 until 1917. He was three times awarded the Institution's Silver Medal for gallantry. He received awards for Life-boat services from the Norwegian and Finnish Governments, and from the German Emperor. He held the Humane Society's Medal for saving life from the shore, and three times received its Vote of Thanks on Vellum for similar services. He was presented with a Silver Box by the Mayor and Corporation of Aldeburgh for going out in his own boat and rescuing four men, and with a Silver Cigarette Case by a lady, three of whose daughters he had saved at various times from drowning.

Such is a very brief record of his gallantry.* But he was more than a brave man. His knowledge and ex- perience as a seaman were greatly valued by the Institution, and he was one of four Coxswains chosen as judges in a series of trials of the Institution's different types of Sailing Life-boats which were carried out at Lowestoft in 1892, and lasted over two months.

His name will always be remembered and held in honour in the history of the Life-boat Service as the chief figure in many heroic services, and as a man who in his own person represented at their highest, the courage, endurance, humanity and splendid seamanship of British Life-boatmen..