ON the 22nd March this year a life-boat museum was opened at Eastbourne.

The Institution has, at its head- quarters in London, a collection of life-boat pictures and models, and there have been at various times short life-boat exhibitions in different parts of the country, but this is the first, permanent life-boat museum.

It was decided to place this museum at Eastbourne for several reasons.

Visitors come there from all over Great Britain; Eastbourne has had a life-boat station for 115 years; it has, in the work of raising funds for the service, one of the most active and successful branches and ladies' life-boat guilds in the country; and it has, in its old lifeboat-house at the Wish Tower in the middle of the front, a building admirably situated for the purpose of a museum.

In Memory of William Terries.

The life-boathouse commemorates a man who was famous in his day, and his death in tragic circumstances. The older generation will remember William Terriss as one of the handsomest and most popular actors of his time, and his death in 1897, when he was stabbed by a brother actor outside the stage- door of the Adelphi Theatre in London.

A year later the " William Terriss Memorial Life-boathouse " was erected in Eastbourne near the Wish Tower, out of a fund raised by the London Daily Telegraph " From those," as is recorded on the memorial tablet, " who loved and admired him." There was, at that time, one life-boat station at Eastbourne. In 1903 a second was established at the Fishing Station.

A motor life-boat was placed at the second station in 1921, and in 1924 the first station was closed. The William Terriss Memorial Life-boat House had then housed an active life-boat for twenty-six years. Since 1924 it has continued to house a life-boat, but for demonstration only. As such it must have been inspected by thousands of visitors, and now, as the only life-boat museum in the British Isles, it should attract many thousands more and re- main as a permanent feature of the life-boat service on our coasts. By a strange coincidence the tragic end of the man whom the house commemo- rates was recalled to the public, only a few weeks before the museum was opened, by the death of his murderer in Broadmoor Asylum.

The Exhibits.

The museum shows the development in the work of life-saving from sea since the first life-boat was built at South Shields in 1789. Thirteen models show the changes in the life-boat itself from the Original to the latest types of motor life-boat.

Five of those thirteen models were specially made for the museum by motor mechanics of the Institution who are expert model-makers. There is also a model, made by one of the Institution's surveyors of life-boats, of the motor caterpillar launching tractor.

A number of exhibits contrast the old method and the new. Life-size figures show the nineteenth and the twentieth-century life-boatmen in their oilskins, one wearing the old cork life-belt, and the other the modern kapok belt. The old powder signal gun for summoning the life-boat crew is contrasted with the modem mortar and maroon; the old leaded cane which was thrown by hand to the wreck, carrying a line, with the modern line-throwing gun and line-throwing pistol. Among the actual parts and equipment of a modern life-boat which are in the exhibition are air-eases, relieving-valves and scuppers, pro- pellers, engine switch and capsizing switch, drogue, searchlight, anchor, masthead flashing-lamp, fuse and coil boxes, and first aid outfit.

Pictures.

On the walls are a portrait of William Terriss, presented to the museum by his daughter Lady Hicks, and portraits of Sir William Hillary, the institution's founder, and. famous coxswains ofEngland, Scotland, Ireland and Wales—men who represent the finest courage and skill of the life-boat service.

There are photographs also of life-boats in action, a cut-out chart of the British Isles with the life-boat stations, a picture showing the use of the drogue, and a model of a section of a motor life-boat, showing its interior.

There is an Eastbourne section to the museum, with the service boards of the station, and portraits of the Eastbourne coxswains since 1853.

Besides these models for the public to see, there are other models for them to work—a self-righting life-boat in a tank which they are invited to capsize, and two models in which, by putting a coin in the slot, they are able to launch the life-boat to the rescue and save the shipwrecked crew.

The Opening Ceremony.

The Mayor of Eastbourne presided at the opening of the museum, supported by Sir Godfrey Baring, Bt., chairman of the Institution, Lady (Seymour) Hicks (daughter of William Terriss), Mr. Ernest Armstrong, chair- man of the branch, Mrs. Astley Roberts, president of the Eastbourne Ladies' Life-boat Guild, Lieut.-Col. C. R.

Satterthwaite, O.B.E., secretary of the Institution, Councillor Alexander Robertson, honorary secretary of the branch, Lieut.-Commander A.'- O.

Bradford, R.N.V.R., V.D., assistant honorary secretary, and Mr. H. W.

Fovargue, the town clerk.

The Mayor spoke of the great pride which Eastbourne took in its life-boat station, and of the station's long record.

He congratulated the Institution on having chosen Eastbourne as the place for its national museum, and; recalling the history of the boat-house, Welcomed Lady Hicks, herself a distinguished actress and the daughter £nd the wife of famous actors. He hoped it would be a pride and a pleasure to her that this memorial to her father was to remain as the permanent home of a national life-boat museum.

Sir Godfrey Baring, Bt., spoke in particular of the Institution's debt to Mr. Ernest Armstrong, chairman of the Eastbourne branch, and a member of the committee of management of the Institution, for it was his idea that the life-boathouse should be converted into a museum, and he had personally superintended the arrange- ment of the exhibits. He also spoke of the Institution's debt to Councillor Alexander Robertson, the honorary secretary of the station for fourteen years, in whose personal care the museum would be.

Mr. Ernest Armstrong, in proposing a vote of thanks to the Mayor and Sir Godfrey Baring, Bt., announced that Mrs. Astley Roberts, president of the Ladies' Life-boat Guild, had decided to use at once a legacy which she had left the Institution in her will, and to provide with it an illuminated three- faced clock to place on the top of the museum, where it would be of the greatest use to the public. In- dependently of Mrs. Astley Roberts, Councillor Alexander Robertson had E resented an electric clock which ad already been placed inside the museum.

Mrs. Astley Roberts seconded the vote of thanks, and said that, with the help of the museum, the Ladies' Life-boat Guild hoped to be able to do still more in the future for the life-boat service than it had done in the past.

Lady Hicks, addressing the audience as " my very old friends," said : " I am truly touched to be allowed to take part in the opening of this museum.

Although it is a very happy day, there is a touch of sadness abouOb, because I cannot help looking back ro the days when this life-boathouse was built, soon after my father's death. I am proud and happy to think that he is connected with anything concerning the sea; for he always lov d the sea.

As a boy he was a sailor, and he was known to his friends as ' Breezy Bill.' I cannot Taplp feeling that he would be very pr ud to think that he was helping with this museum. I thank you aU very much. I am sure his spirit is with us, and he is thanking ' you all." Sir Godfrey Baring, t., then unlocked the door and declared the museum open.