Coxswain George Cromarty, of Holy Island, who died on 14th January at the age of seventy-six, was second coxswain from 1897 to 1911, and coxswain from 1911 to 1932, so that for over thirty- four and a half years he served as an officer of the life-boat. During his twenty years as coxswain the life- boat rescued 113 lives, and Coxswain Cromarty himself twice won the In- stitution's silver medal for gallantry.

He won it first in 1916, when on the night of 16th November the life-boat rescued the whole crew of fourteen of the barque Jolani, of Gothenburg, in a hurricane, with a very heavy sea running. The second occasion was on the night of 15th January, 1922, when, in a gale with blinding snowstorms, the life-boat rescued the whole crew of nine of the trawler James B. Graham, of Hartlepool. She had gone ashore, and in order to reach her Coxswain Cromarty had to take the life-boat, in the darkness and snowstorm, between two rocks. When he retired in 1932 at the age of seventy-two he was awarded a pension and a certificate of service..