THE life-boat station at the Humber this year celebrated the 150th anni- versary of its foundation. A certificate inscribed on vellum, signed by H.R.H.

the Duchess of Kent, President of the Institution, was presented to the station by Admiral Sir William R. Slayter, a member of the Committee of Manage- ment, at a ceremony held at the life- boathouse on the 22nd of June. A service of thanksgiving was conducted by the Bishop of Hull (the Right Rev.

G. F. Townley) assisted by the Rev.

L. F. Erving, Vicar of Easington. The party, which then went afloat, included among others the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Hull and ex-Coxswain Robert Cross, now aged 84, who was twice awarded the Institution's gold medal for gallantry.

The Humber station at Spurn Point was established in 1810, and until 1908 was maintained by the Hull Trinity House. In that year it came under the control of the Humber Conservancy Board, and not until 1911 was it taken over by the Institution. No complete record exists of lives saved by the station before 1911, but there is docu- mentary evidence indicating that more than 760 lives were rescued between 1810 and 1854. Since the station came under the control of the Institution Humber life-boats have been launched on service 400 times and have rescued 414 lives. The life-boat City of Brad- ford II, which was at the station from 1929 to 1954, had the remarkable distinc- tion of rescuing no fewer than 305 lives.

Three of the Humber life-boats have been presented by the Bradford branch.

The life-boat station at Margate celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its foundation at a ceremony at the Rendezvous car park in Margate on the 28th of May. A service of thanks- giving was conducted by the Reverend Canon S. A. Odom, Vicar of Margate and Rural Dean of Thanet, assisted by the Reverend D. T. Scotland, President of the Margate Free Church Council and Minister of the Union Crescent Congregational Church. The Mayor of Margate, Alderman G. A. Kirby, was in the chair, and Captain the Hon.

V. M. Wyndham-Quin, R.N., deputy chairman of the Committee of Manage- ment, presented the vellum signed by the Duchess of Kent.

In the past hundred years Margate life-boats have been launched on service 791 times and have rescued 886 lives.

This impressive figure of lives rescued does not include the 600 men taken off the beaches at Dunkirk by the Margate life-boat in 1940.

The last three life-boats to be stationed at Margate have all been provided by the Civil Service Life-boat Fund..