Mr. Alfred Belk, of Hartlepool, an alderman, borough recorder, town clerk and justices' clerk, who died on 4th December, 1937, at the age of eighty- four, had retired from the honorary secretaryship of the Hartlepool station five years before. He was then the senior of the 1,200 branch honorary secretaries. He had been appointed in 1881, so that he had served for fifty- one years, for the first twenty-eight as sole honorary secretary and then for twenty-three years as joint honorary secretary. During those fifty-one years the Hartlepool life-boats rescued 178 lives. Mr. Belk was awarded the Institution's binoculars in 1893, and its decoration (now the gold badge) in 1904. In 1930 he was appointed an honorary life-governor, the highest honour which the Institution can give an honorary worker, and on his retire- ment, two years later, he was awarded the Institution's thanks inscribed on vellum and a silver inkstand. He left a legacy of £50 to the Institution..