THE Inaugural Ceremony of the new Motor Life-boat at Hoylake, Cheshire, took place on 9th June. This boat has been provided out of the Oldham Life- boat Fund, which was started just over fifty years ago, and towards which by special appeals, Oldham last year con- tributed £374, in addition to £234 which it raised for the general funds of the Institution. This new boat takes the place of the Oldham which was built out of the Fund in 1904, and which served at the station at Abersoch, Caernarvon- shire, until 1930, rescuing 69 lives.

A New Type of Life-boat.

The new Hoylake boat is a new light type of Liverpool Life-boat, specially designed for Stations where the Life-boat has to be launched off a carriage or the open beach. She is somewhat similar to the light self-righting type, of which many have been placed on the coast during the last two years, but is broader in the beam, being 35 feet 6 inches by 10 feet, and is for those Stations where the crews prefer to have a steadier type of Life- boat, which, though it will not self-right if it capsizes, is less likely to capsize than the self-righting type. She is divided into eight water-tight compartments and is fitted with 115 air-cases. She has one screw, driven by a 35 h.p. engine, giving her a speed of 7 knots, and she carries enough petrol to travel 116 miles at full speed without refuelling. The engine is in a water-tight compartment and is itself water-tight, so that it could continue running even if the engine- room were flooded. If a sea breaks on board the boat she can free herself in twelve seconds. She carries a crew of eight men, and can take thirty people on board in rough weather.

HoyJake is one of the oldest Life-boat Stations, having been established in 1803. Its Life-boats have rescued 48 lives since 1850.

The Life-boat was presented to the Institution by the Mayor of Oldham (Alderman J. Hague, J.P.), who gave a short account of the Oldham Fund, and paid a tribute to the work of Mrs. C.

Hardman and Mrs. Eastwood, the Honorary Treasurer and Honorary Secretary of the Oldham Ladies' Life- boat Guild, and of Mr. Edward Dean, who for thirty-six years has been the Honorary Secretary of the Branch.

Sir Godfrey Baring, Bt., Chairman of the Committee of Management of the Institution, received the Life-boat and thanked Oldham for this further proof of its generosity towards the Life-boat Service.

The boat was described by Lieut-Com- mander G. E. Cousins, D.S.C., E.N., Dis- trict Inspector of Life-boats, and received by the Rev. Canon W. T. Warburton, M. A., Chairman of the Hoylake Branch.

The Bishop of Chester (the Right Rev. Henry Luke Paget, D.D.) then dedicated the Life-boat, and on the invitation of Mrs. Hardman, Mrs. J. F.

Waterhouse, ex-Mayoress of Oldham, named the Life-boat Oldham.

A vote of thanks to Mrs. Waterhouse and the people of Oldham was proposed by Mr. Charles Livingstone, Deputy Chairman of the Liverpool Branch, and seconded by Canon Warburton, and a vote of thanks to the Liverpool and Hoylake Branches was proposed by Mr.

Edward Dean..