THE LIFE-BOAT FLEET 153 Motor Life-boats 1 Harbour Pulling Life-boat LIVES RESCUED from the foundation of the Life-boat Service in 1824 to August 31st, 1952 - 77,894 One Hundred Years Old By I. O. Evans, F.R.G.S.

[The author of this article is writing a history of the Life-boat Service.

He has made a close study of the Institution's Journal during its hundred years, and the Institution gratefully accepted his kind offer to write a centenary article about it.] PERTURBED at the indifference shown by "a maritime country like Great Britain" to its work—which had already been in operation for twenty- eight years—just over a hundred years ago The National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, as it was then called, embarked on a new venture. With the aim of advan- cing "the great cause we advocate," the Institution published, on March 1st, 1852, the first number of its Journal. Now, a century later, it is interesting to see how far this has achieved its aim.

The first issue announced its pro- gramme. It was to notice new life- boat stations, to discuss improvements in the boats and their gear, and to record "all distinguished services of life-boats in going off to wrecks" and "all rewards of distinguished services in saving life." Except that the rocket life - saving apparatus, with which it had also proposed to deal, was, a year or so later, handed over to the Board of Trade and the Coast- guard, the Journal has faithfully ful- filled its promise. Notices of new stations, technical improvements, ser- vices of life-boats, and awards have always filled the bulk of its space.

Its proposal to include the "reports and proceedings" of local life-boat committees, was manifestly impos- sible: there was not enough space.

Instead, it reports in full the presi- dential and other addresses at its annual general meetings.

Wreck Charts It meant also to include a complete register, based on Lloyd's List, of the wrecks round our islands, and to try to point out the probable cause of the wrecks and the means by which they might have been avoided. For many years it did, in fact, include lists of wrecks and even illustrated them with wreck charts. These charts continued until the beginning of the First World War. As to their "causes," the most that could be done was to discuss at some length individual wrecks of special importance.

Finally, it was to open its columnsto correspondence "on the subject of saving life from shipwreck." But here the results were disappointing: unlike most other technical periodicals, the Life-boat Journal has included singu- larly few letters on any subject. The first, in 185-4, discussed life-belts; the most curious was a suggestion, in 1893, from the well-known author Dr. Gordon Stables, that the dog- lovers of the land should subscribe to purchase a "Dogs of Britain" life-boat! It amply made up for the lack of correspondence, however, by including many authoritative articles on subjects related to its purpose. Among these were articles on Weather Wisdom by Admiral Fitzroy, one of the foremost meteorologists of the time. Other contributions dealt with the use of barometers, the Rule of the Road at sea, the magnetic compass; and several canvassed the rival merits of the various methods of artificial respira- tion then coming into use.

Criticisms Refuted The provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts were discussed in detail.

Criticisms of the Life-boat Service were refuted; complaints of the predatory habits of "salvors" (fishermen who offered to help ships in difficulties) were examined; but the Journal had to deplore the low moral character of many seamen and to admit the exis- tence of unscrupulous shipping lines which knowingly made use of unsea- worthy vessels. There were also articles on coastal erosion and on wrecks and derelicts; detailed descrip- tions of light-houses; attempts to estimate the effects on small fishing communities of steam trawlers; and a very modern-sounding complaint of the high cost of fish in London! An interesting series of articles described many life-boat stations and even gave historical notes on these; they paid special attention to local dangers and difficulties. The controversy between supporters of the two contrasting types of life-boat, the self-righting and the non-self- righting, received impartial treatment.

Steam life-boats were discussed, and the conclusion regretfully arrived at that they were desirable but for the time impracticable—only a year or so before they were invented! The Life-boat in Verse Such matters were diversified by occasional short stories, or extracts from contemporary novels, giving imaginative accounts of life-boat work.

They were diversified, too, by nearly two hundred pieces of verse on various aspects of the Service: the cream of these, selected by Sir John Gumming and Mr. Charles Vince, have been reprinted to form that delightful anthology, The Life-boat in Verse.

A memorial article on Sir William Hillary, which appeared in an early issue, was quickly followed by another on Grace Darling. Thereafter as, with the cffluxion of time, the Institution lost its leading figures, their work was similarly recounted. Outstanding members of the committee and tech- nicians, local secretaries and benefac- tors, figured here equally with heroic coxswains and members of the crews.

Changing Customs The early issues of the Journal have a special interest in making clear the great change which has taken place in the national customs and outlook.

It seems strange to modern readers that articles should appear urging British youth to sea-bathe and to learn to swim! (Male youth was meant: the possibility that both sexes might do so does not seem to have been contemplated.) The practical hints on this subject, too, read strangely in these days; on entering the sea, inexperienced bathers were advised first to wet their hair and then to dip it under water, to avoid the "rush of blood" to the head. River-bathing, it seems, was practised in secluded backwaters, and costumes were un- usual: one article glanced facetiously at the predicament of a bather swept by an eddy into the main stream just as a boat carrying "young ladies" (there was a touch of Victorian arch- ness about the early issues of the Journal) happened to pass by! Religious Feeling These early issues also display a depth of religious feeling unknown in secular periodicals of the present day;references to the Almighty are not uncommon—nor do they seem out of place or insincere. They are more- over far-reaching: the writers saw the Hand of Providence not only in the sudden wave which swept a life-boat to safety when it seemed to be lost, but in the human devotion and inven- tiveness which made possible the Service and its boats.

This faith not unnaturally produced a sturdy optimism which we can only envy. In discussing the moral defi- ciencies of the average seaman, the Journal abandoned the problem as almost hopeless but for the improve- ment which might be expected from the general moral advancement of our civilization. Nowadays that seems a very broken reed—in fact, we are tempted to turn the argument the other way and to suggest that one of the forces which may overcome the general degradation of moral life will be the splendid example given to landsmen in the devotion of the life- boat crews.

Literary Style The very style of the early Journals is characteristic. Writing for a classically-educated public, its con- tributors may not have deliberately aimed at "well-turned periods" but they had traditional literary standards at the back of their minds. Some- times they drop into rhetoric or tremble on the verge of bathos, but that is unusual.

The return of peace after the First World War produced great changes in the Journal. Not only was it now far better printed and illustrated than the early issues, it was, moreover, aiming at a wider public. Its style became less literary and more popular and journalistic—but never descended to the meretricious or took refuge in jargon. It now restricted its articles to matters directly bearing on the Life-boat Service, and livened them up with a causerie under the title of "Notes and News." Among other interests it started a vigorous cam- paign to persuade—almost to shame— certain unsympathetic shipping con- cerns into supporting the Institution's work. In lighter vein, it discussed the problems and even the humours en- countered by life-boat day collectors, and the ingenious methods of pub- licitv they devised.

The Journal To-day During the Second. World Wai- paper restrictions reduced the Journal to a mere leaflet, just sufficient to maintain its historical continuity. In 1947 it again became a magazine, well-written, well-illustrated, though somewhat narrowed in scope by pro- duction and financial considerations.

Reduced as its available space is, however, it continues to utilize it upon the lines which have proved so satis- factory in the past—with accounts of the opening of new stations, of the latest mechanical contrivances which facilitate the work of the crews, accounts of all life-boat services, full narratives of deeds of heroism, and brief memorials to those who have given good service in this vital task.

From the small, poorlv-printed first issue, void of illustrations and selling at three-halfpence, to the superior production of the present day seems almost as great a step as that from the old Original to the modern motor life-boat. Yet, old or modern, the aim of both is unchanged: that of the boats to rescue those in danger off our shores, that of the Journal to assist in this work by making it more widely-known..