BY the death of Mr. James Hartley Burton on 16th May, at the age of eighty-one, the Institution has lost an outstanding honorary secretary. He became the honorary secretary of the Penmon, Anglesey, station in 1906, and when that station was closed in 1915 he became honorary secretary at Beaumaris, so that he had served as an honorary secretary of a station for thirty-two years. He brought to his life-boat work a wide experience of the sea, for he had spent many years afloat in small vessels, and had sailed on most of the oceans of the world in his own yachts.' No honorary secretary was more esteemed and trusted by his crew, and on many occasions he went out in the life-boat on service. In 1909 he and the coxswain were both awarded the Institution's silver medal for their very brave attempts to rescue the crew of three of the ketch William, of Liverpool, which was driven ashore in a whole gale. The life-boat was out for fifteen hours, and she herself was driven ashore in the attempts to get alongside the ketch as the rising tide carried her up the beach. In 1918 Mr. Burton was awarded the Institution's aneroid barometer, and in 1933 its binoculars.

Last year he was appointed an honorary life-governor, the highest distinction which the Institution can confer on one of its honorary workers. Mr. Burton's life-boat work was only one of many public activities. He was an alderman of County Anglesey, was Mayor of Beau- maris eighteen times, and was a freeman of the borough..