THIS year is the centenary of the death of Lionel Lukin, whose name will always be remembered as one of the originators of the idea of the life-boat. He was a fashionable and successful coach builder in London, and Master of the Worshipful Company of Coach Builders.

He was also a very ingenious inventor, his inventions ranging from a rain gauge and a bed for invalids to his " unimmergible" boat. But he is chiefly remembered as the man who converted a coble into a safety boat which was stationed at Bamburgh in 1786, and was the first boat to be used on our shores for the purpose of saving life from shipwreck, and as the man who, twenty-one years later, designed the first sailing life-boat.

When the Institution was founded in 1824, Lionel Lukin was in his eighty- second year. The letter which he wrote to the chairman on that occasion, and his family tree, which shows his descent from one of Admiral Blake's captains, are preserved at the head- quarters of the Institution.

Lukin died ten years later, on 16th February, 1834, in his ninety-second year, and was buried in the churchyard at Hythe, Kent. In Hythe Parish Church is a memorial window. On his tomb- stone are the words: '' This Lionel Lukin was the first who built a life-boat.".