THE LIFE-BOAT FLEET Motor Life-boats, 90 :: Pulling & Sailing Life-boats, 104 LIVES RESCUED from the foundation of the Institution in 1824 to 27th November, 1930 62,443 Grace Darling's Coble.

A Permanent Home at Bamburgh.

A Maiden gentle, ye!, at duty's call, Firm and unflinching as the Lighthouse reared On the Island-rock, her lonely dwelling- place.—WORDSWORTH.

Years on years have withered since beside the hearth once thine I, too young to have seen thee, touched thy father's hallowed hand.

Thee and him shall all men see for ever, stars that shine, While the sea that spared thee girds and glorifies the land.—SWINBURNE.

The boat in which, ninety-two years ago, Grace Darling performed the deed which has made her one of the heroines of the English race, came into the pos- session of the Institution in 1913. It was gene.iously presented by Lady John Joicey-Cecil, the only condition attached to the gift being that it should remain in the county of Northumberland.

Since then the boat has been on exhibition at the Dove Marine Labora- tory at Cullercoats. The Institution has no record of the coble before it came into its possession, but we have been informed that it has been shown at five exhibitions—at Tynemouth in 1882, London 1883, Liverpool 1886, Newcastle 1887, and Glasgow 1888.

In 1924 it was proposed to bring it temporarily to London in connexion with the Centenary Celebrations of the Institution, but it was found that the boat was then too frail for this to be done without considerable risk. The idea was therefore given up, but it was found possible to move it to Newcastle- on-Tyne for the North-East Coast Exhi- bition, which was held there from May to October of last year. The removal had to be carried out with the greatest care, and the work was entrusted to the Crew of the Cullercoats Life-boat.

Through the kindness of the Com- mittee and Managers of the Exhibition a free site was provided for the coble in the Hall of Engineering, and it was a strange and moving sight to see this small, frail old boat, placed close by the latest type of motor railway coach, one of the largest telescopes in the world, a full-size Diesel engine and one of the newest types of out-board motor boat.

The Rescue.

Though Grace Darling's is a house- hold name throughout the British race, there are probably few who know the details of her great effort. Near the coble, therefore, was placed a short account of it.

At three in the morning of the 7th September, 1838, the steamer Forfar- shire, with 63 men and women on board, was flung on the terrible Harcar Rocks off the coast of Northumberland. Seven of her crew launched a boat at once. By a miracle it kept clear of the rocks, and twentv-four hours later it was picked up.

Immediately after the boat got away, a tremendous sea struck the steamer, lifted her and flung her again on the rocks. She broke in half, and the after-part was swept away, with the majority of the passengers on board.

They all perished.

The survivors on the fore-part of the steamer managed to get on to a small rock, and there for the rest of the night they lay, numbed with the cold and swept by the seas, in a gale so fierce that their clothes were stripped from them. Among them was a woman who was found, when help at last came, still alive, and clasping in each hand her children, a boy of eight and a girl of eleven, who had died hours before.

There, about seven in the morning, they were seen from the Longstone Lighthouse—a mile away—and Grace Darling, the daughter of the Lighthouse- keeper, was determined that an effort should be made to save them. She and her father, William Darling, launched bheir boat, and after a tremendous and perilous struggle, which tried their courage and strength to the utmost, they reached the rock. There were only nine sxirvivors of the passengers and crew. Five were taken into the boat and brought in safety to the Light- house. Then William Darling, with two of the rescued men, put off again and the other four were saved. For this heroic service Grace Darling and her father were each awarded the Silver Medal of the Institution.

Grace Darling was only twenty- three years old at the time. She was not strong. Her health was already giving way. Her illness was hastened by the tremendous strain of that night's heroic work. Four years later, at the age of twenty-seven, she died. But her name, and the story of her heroism are im- perishable.

The Coble.

It is hardly possible to appreciate that story of heroism without seeing the boat in which Grace Darling and her father ventured out. It was a coble, 21 feet long by 6 feet wide, an open row- ing boat, unprovided with any of those contrivances which give exceptional strength, stability and buoyancy to a Life-boat. To see it, after reading the story, is to understand the danger which Grace Darling and her father knowingly faced.

As soon as it was known that the coble would be at the Exhibition, offers of the loan of relics of the Darlings and the Forfarshire were received from all parts of Northumberland. Unfor- tunately, it was impossible for the In- stitution to arrange to include these relics in the exhibit, and the offers had to be declined. The boat, itself, how- ever, needed no additional relics to attract the public. The first person to inspect it was the Prince of Wales, the Institution's President, when he came to open the Exhibition, and from then onwards, through the six months, there was a constant stream of visitors to the Institution's stand. The Exhibition Authorities themselves were astonished to see how greatly it attracted the public, but it is hardly surprising when it is remembered that Grace Darling is Northumberland's special heroine, and that every Northumbrian child knows her story.

Parties of school children from all over the North of England went to see the boat, and one schoolmistress said that of all the wonderful things which tier children had seen at the Exhibition, this would be the greatest and most last- ing memory. Children were continually to be seen crowding round the boat and listening to the story, and many of them afterwards put their pennies and half- pennies in the Life-boat Collecting Box.

These were gifts out of the little sums saved to be spent at the Exhibition, and more than one tragic mistake was made.

Thus the Organizing Secretary received a letter from a schoolmaster to say that, by mistake, one of the boys had put 2s. (jd. in the collecting-box : " this half-crown has been the accumulated amount of several weeks' saving in anti- cipation of the visit." The half-crown was at once returned.

The exhibition of the boat at New- castle attracted attention far beyond the North of England. The Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Company— the line to which the Forfarshire be- longed—asked for the loan of the coble in connexion with the help which it waa giving the Dundee Branch on Life-boat Day.* The request had, with regret, to be refused owing to the fear of damaging the boat. From the Captain of a Girls' School in Kent came a request for full particulars about Grace Darling, as each house in the school had its own heroine and she was one of them. The particu- lars were sent and the school made a donation to the Institution.

Two Generous Gifts.

Towards the end of ths Exhibition Messrs. Wailes Dove Bitumastic, Ltd..

Newcastle-on-Tyne, the manufacturers of Bitumastic Enamels, who had a stall at the Exhibition close by the boat, asked that they might be allowed to show their appreciation of the interest which it had excited by paying the cost * See The Lifeboat for September, 1929, and Septembsr, 1930.

of having it strengthened and repaired, so that it might last for another 100 years. This generous offer was grate- fully accepted by the Institution, the boat was surveyed by one of the Insti- tution's own Life-boat surveyors, and she has now been put in as thorough a state of repair as is possible without altering her appearance.

Meanwhile, steps were taken to find a permanent home for the boat. More than one placs on the Northumbrian coast claimed ths honour, and it was finally decided that no more suitable spot could be found than Bamburgh.

The Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands lies four miles off the Bamburgh cliffs. Grace Darling is buried in Bam- burgh Church, and above the tomb is her memorial window. It was thought at first that the boat might be placed in the Church itself, but as this was not found to be possible the Institution gratefully accepted a generous offer from Lord Armstrong, the owner of Bam- burgh Castle, of a piece of land on his estate overlooking the sea. Here a house will be erected in which the boat will be placed, and Lord Armstrong has headed the subscription list of an appeal which he is making to provide the house. Here will be the permanent home of Grace Darling's coble, overlooking th? scene of her great exploit and near by her tomb, and here all who visit Bamburgh will be able to see this historic relic of a great Englishwoman..