THE retirement of Commander T. G.

Michelmore, O.B.E., R.D., R.N.R., the Chief Inspector of Life-boats, takes effect from the 30th of June, 1958.

Commander Michelmore joined the Life-boat Service as a district inspector of life-boats in 1930. He had been for seventeen years with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, had held a master's certificate for nine years, was a second officer, and a lieutenant-commander on the active list of the Royal Naval Reserve. During the 1914-1918 war he had served in the Tenth Cruiser Squadron in the North Atlantic and Arctic Sea and then, as first lieutenant of destroyers, in the North Sea, the Dover Patrol and the Mediterranean.

His first post in the Life-boat Service was as Northern District Inspector, and in 1941 he was transferred to the Eastern District. He was appointed Deputy Chief Inspector in 1945 and Chief Inspector in 1951.

Burnett Brown, the Institution, Colonel A. D.

the Secretary of writes : " Of Michelmore's technical abilities I am not competent to speak. I do know that all round the coast both as District Inspector and later as Chief Inspector he has been universally liked and respected. In London his long experience and sound advice have always been of the greatest service to the Committee of Management. As a colleague I have found him friendly and co-operative and his timely sense of humour has lightened discussion in many places. The Life-boat Institution depends so much on team work and for successful working each member of the team must sympathise with and appreciate the position of the others.

Michelmore's ready interest in many matters outside the normal scope of his duties has been of the greatest assistance.".