THE first of three life-boats built out of a gift of £33,000, which the Institution has received from its Southern Africa branch,* was named at Beaumaris, Anglesey, on the 23rd of July, 1948, in the presence of a large audience on the pier and hundreds more watching from the shore. She is a 46-feet Watson cabin life-boat, and she went to the station in-September, 1945.

Colonel Lawrence Williams, O.B.E., D.L., J.P., chairman of the Anglesey branch, presided. Commander E. W.

Middleton, R.N.V.R., district inspector of life-boats, described the boat, and Commodore the Right Hon. the Earl Howe, C.B.E., V.R.D., P.C., R.N.V.R., deputy chairman of the Institution, presented her to the branch on behalf of the Southern Africa branch and the Institution. Lord Howe paid tribute to the work of Miss Pattie Price, the South African diseuse and singer, who was the founder of the branch and who has just been appointed an honorary life-governor of the Institution. In accepting the boat Sir Richard Williams- Bulkeley, Bt., Lord Lieutenant of Anglesey and president of the Anglesey branch, said that Anglesey was proud to have a life-boat bearing the name of so distinguished a statesman.

•See the Life-boat for July 1948 Colonel R. R. Davies, D.L., J.P., honorary secretary of the Anglesey branch, returned thanks and the Archdeacon of Bangor (The Venerable R.

Hughes, B.A.) dedicated the life-boat, assisted by the Rev. J. E. Ramage, M.A. (Rector of Llandegfan and Beaumaris) and the Rev. If or Hael Jones.

The Countess Howe then named the life-boat Field Marshal and Mrs. Smuts.

After the naming of the boat Lady Howe presented medals won by the Moelfre life-boat for the rescue of sixty lives from the s.s. Gleneden in January, 1940, and for the rescue of four from an aeroplane's rubber dinghy in October, 1943. She also presented certificates of services to the secondcoxswains of Moelfre and Beaumaris.

Lord Howe then presented to Colonel Lawrence Williams the vellum recording his appointment as an honorary life-governor of the Institution.

A vote of thanks was proposed by Mrs. E. Moseley, chairman of the Menai Bridge Ladies' Life-boat Guild, and seconded by Miss Mary C. Burton, chairman of the Beaumaris Ladies' •Life-boat Guild. The singing was led by the Llandegfan and Beaumaris Church Choirs, accompanied by the band of T.S. Indefatigable, and members of the Beaumaris Ladies' Life-boat Guild sold the programmes..