'horsing' the boat, she continued for a time to be launched with the aid of a locally-based regiment. Before being taken out of commission in 9 6John and Henrietta had been launched 61 times and rescued 27 lives. The boat was finally sold for £8 3s. Fortunately one of the last army-assisted practice launches has been preserved on 35mm film which survived in the possession of an old Formby resident; this invaluable record has now been transferred to 16mm film for posterity.

In 1918 the RNLI Committee of Management, with the concurrence of the local committee and Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, decided to close the station. John Aindow, the last coxswain, continued to live on in Lifeboat Cottage, which was increasingly surrounded by encroaching sand dunes, representative of a family perhaps descended from Viking forebears which provided crew and coxswain for generations for this historic station.

All that remains today at Formby is the sandstone edging of the base of the boathouse, together with the last inspection book, the film and the memories of older inhabitants. In Liverpool, however, the original minute books are still preserved which tell of the foundation of this, the first marine lifesaving establishment in the British Isles, preceding even Bamburgh by ten years..